Ill 


BX  5937  .F7  E8  1920 
Freeman,  James  E.  1866-1943 
Everyday  religion 


EVERYDAY 
RELIGION 

Little  "Tribune"  Sermons 


By 
JAMES  E.  FREEMAN,  D.  D., 

Rector  of   St.  Mark's  Church,  Minneapolis,  Minn. 

Author  of  "The  Man  and  the  Master"; 

"If  Not  the  Saloon,  What?" 

and  "Themes  in  Verse" 


New  York  Chicago 

Fleming   H.  Revell  Company 

London    and    Edinburgh 


Copyright,  1920,  by 
FLEMING  H.  JREVELL  COMPANY 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  17  North  Wabash  Ave. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:       75     Princes     Street 


DEDICATED 

To  the  great  body  of  generous  and  responsive 

"Tribune"  readers. 


INTRODUCTION 

DR.  FREEMAN  has  honored  me  with  a  request  that 
I  write  an  introduction  to  this  book  of  sermons. 
The  sermons  speak  for  themselves.  From  them,  better 
than  from  anything  I  can  say,  the  reader  may  gather  the 
purpose  of  their  production,  their  adaptabihty  to  the  ob- 
ject aimed  at,  their  appeal  to  a  newspaper  reading  public. 

What  I  prefer  to  say  begins  with  the  story  of  how 
these  sermons  came  to  be  written  for  and  published  by 
The  Tribune.  It  was  five  or  six  years  ago,  as  I  am  told, 
that  Dr.  Freeman  happened  one  day  to  be  talking  with 
the  late  William  J.  Murphy,  then  owner  of  The  Tribune, 
about  the  paper  and  his  plans  with  respect  to  it  and  sug- 
gested to  Mr.  Murphy  that  he  had  a  great  opportunity 
to  bear  to  the  public  important  religious  truths  as  well  as 
information  and  counsel  on  economic,  political  and  social 
questions ;  that  men  are  more  interested  in  the  vital, 
noncontroversial  aspects  of  religion  than  is  commonly 
supposed.  In  this  Mr.  Murphy  agreed  and  asked  Dr. 
Freeman  to  write  for  The  Tribune  a  series  of  articles 
setting  forth  the  essentials  of  everyday  religion,  avoid- 
ing whatever  might  tend  to  awaken  controversy  over 
mere  differences  in  creeds  and  observances. 

At  Mr.  Murphy's  suggestion  the  matter  was  later  taken 
up  between  Dr.  Freeman  and  the  Editorial  Department  of 
The  Tribune,  with  the  result  that  every  Sunday  for 
about  four  years  one  of  these  short  sermons  has  occu- 
pied its  regular  place  in  the  northeast  corner  of  the  edi- 
torial page. 

St.  Mark's  pulpit  is  one  of  the  most  outstanding,  ag- 

5 


INTRODUCTION 


gressive  and  progressive  exponents  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion in  the  Mississippi  Valley.  In  the  forward  move- 
ment of  the  church  in  these  latter  days,  it  has  been  a 
leader.  This  is  to  show  the  background  from  which  these 
sermons  have  emanated.  In  such  a  pulpit  one  would  ex- 
pect to  find  the  exponent  of  a  practical,  everyday  kind 
of  religion,  and  this  expectation  has  been  realized,  in 
large  part,  no  doubt,  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  Dr.  Free- 
man came  into  the  pulpit  by  way  of  the  market  place, 
bringing  with  him  the  appreciation  and  the  hunger  of  the 
man  of  the  work-a-day  world  for  elemental  truth  and 
for  the  practical  side  of  rehgion.  Added  to  culture  and 
zeal,  there  is,  in  his  equipment,  personal  experience  in 
large  business  responsibilities — commercial  accomplish- 
ment of  a  high  order  relinquished  in  the  midst  of  success 
and  in  mature  years  that  the  greater  opportunity  of  the 
preacher  might  be  utilized  to  the  uttermost.  And  that, 
probably,  tells  why  these  sermons  have  reached  the  hearts 
and  minds  of  so  many  men  of  serious  purpose  and  have 
spoken  to  them  in  their  own  language. 

The  Tribune  has  taken  a  pride  in  these  sermons  as  a 
weekly  feature  for  other  reasons  as  well  as  their  quality. 
The  so-called  secular  newspaper  has  just  as  legitimate  a 
function  in  disseminating  religious  truth  as  in  spreading 
abroad  commercial,  political  or  scientific  information, 
although  for  a  long  time  it  was  more  generally  honored 
in  the  neglect  than  in  the  performance.  If  it  be  true  that 
the  keynote  of  the  altruistic  spirit  of  the  time  is  service, 
then  service  is  the  high  privilege  of  the  daily  newspaper 
and  no  service  rendered  by  it  can  be  more  worth  while 
than  the  promotion  of  practical  religion,  the  kind  which 
these  sermons  seek  to  inculcate. 

John  Scudder  McLain, 

Minneapolis.  Editor  of  "The  Tribune". 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE 

A  DAILY  NEWSPAPER,  according  to  the  concep- 
tion of  a  great  editor,  should  not  only  be  the  pur- 
veyor of  news,  but  the  conserver  of  those  things  that 
have  to  do  with  life's  most  intimate  and  sacred  interests. 
The  modem  newspaper  is  a  mighty  factor  in  shaping  the 
opinions  and  determining  the  policies  of  our  people  both 
in  their  individual  and  corporate  concerns.  Believing 
that  religion  is  an  indispensable  factor  in  stabilizing  and 
stimulating  the  life  of  the  nation,  The  Minneapolis 
Tribune  several  years  ago  opened  its  Sunday  editorial 
page  to  what  have  come  to  be  called  the  "little  Tribune 
sermons,"  the  only  condition  being  that  they  should  pre- 
sent themes  comprehensive  of  the  broadest  thought  of 
Christian  people  of  every  name,  without  respect  to  de- 
nominational bias.  We  have  endeavored  to  scrupulously 
observe  this  rule,  and  our  effort  has  been  to  present 
themes  that  had  a  bearing  upon  the  experiences  of  every- 
day life.  During  the  critical  days  through  which  we  have 
been  passing,  current  events  have  been  reflected  in  these 
themes.  Without  laying  any  claim  to  originality,  these 
little  sermons  are  presented  in  this  permanent  form,  in 
the  hope  that  they  may  prove  of  value  to  those  who  are 
thinking  deeply  and  seriously  about  the  larger  problems 
of  Hfe. 

Minneapolis,  Minn.  J.  E.  F. 


CONTENTS 

Everyday  Religion      .       .       .       .       .       .       ,  13 

"S.  O.  S." 14 

/A  Cheerful  Gospel 16 

As  A  Man  Thinketh 18 

The  Kingdom  of  God 20 

The  Search  for  Permanence        .       .        .       .  22 

"-Arrested  Development 24 

A  Soldier's  Bible 26 

A  Man's  Privilege 28 

On   Being  Courteous 30 

The  Call  for  Simplicity 32 

Who  Is  My  Neighbor?      .       .       .       .        .       .34 

The  Faith  of  a  Soldier 37 

Keeping  Clean 39 

The  Better  Country 41 

Quietness  and  Confidence 43 

Diligent  in  Business 45 

The  Old  Law  and  the  New 47 

Mobilize 49 

An  Admiral's  Great  Message 51 

"Prayer  Has  Enlightened  My  Way"    .        .       .  54 

The  Church  and  Labor 56 

\ Suspended  Moral  Convictions       ....  58 

A  Look  Ahead 60 

Seeing  Life  Right 62 

The  Old-Time  Religion 65 

The  Book  in  the  Furnace      ...        .       .  67 

"Heckling  the  Church" 70 

Transformed  Power 72 

The  Greatness  of  Personality      .       .        .       .  75 

Beware  of  a  Panic 77 

The  Joy  of  Service      .       .       ...        .       .  79 

The  Law  of  Adaptation    ....       *       '  SI 

The  Undying  Fire      .....••  83 

9 


10  CONTENTS 


Reclamation        . 86 

A  Fresh  Outlook 88 

The  Discipline  of  Change 90 

The  Secret  of  Greatness 92 

"Launch  Out  Into  the  Deep"      .       .        .       .  95 

Value  of  Inconspicuous  Service    .       .        .       .  97 

The  Mother 99 

The  Bondage  of  Fear 102 

The  Saving  Remnant 104 

A  Changed  Life 107 

Mistaken  Zeal 109 

Looking  Backward 112 

Wayfarers 114 

Is  THE  Church  Afraid? 116 

The  Power  of  a  Great  Conviction      .        .       .118 

An  Expectant  World 120 

Morality  or  Religion? 123 

Self-Identification 124 

Restricted  Boundaries 126 

Helping  With  the  Load 129 

Reasoning  Together 131 

A  Searching  Question 133 

The  Logic  of  Life 136 

What  of  Sunday? 138 

Reveille 140 

Taps 143 

Carry  On 145 

Killed  in  Action 147 

A  Word  for  the  Clergy 150 

Great  Beginnings 152 

The  Cross 154 

Immortality 156 

The  Salt  of  the  Earth 157 

Broad  or  Superficial? 160 

Consistent  Judgment 162 

Misunderstood 165 

An  Informed  Ministry 167 

The  Great  Quest 170 

Reconstruction 172 


CONTENTS  11 


"The  Religion  of  the  Inarticulate"    .        .       .  174 

Imagination 177 

False   Reckoning 180 

"The  Man  Who  Was" 182 

Three  Things 185 

Unprofitable  Talk 187 

Churchless  Sundays 190 

Life  With  a  Purpose 192- 

Confidence 195 

Waste 197 

The  Indispensableness  of  Religion     .        .       .  200 

Abdicated  Parenthood 202 

Forward  Looking 204 

Jesus  Christ,  the  Workman         ....  206 

Jesus  Christ,  the  Teacher 209 

Jesus  Christ,  the  Reformer 211 

Jesus  Christ,  the  Friend 213 

Jesus  Christ,  the  Liberator 215 

Jesus  Christ,  the  Saviour 217^ 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

"p  ELIGION  BETWEEN  SUNDAYS,"  is  the  sug- 
AV  gestive  title  of  an  interesting  book  that  sets  forth 
the  need  for  a  more  practical  and  vital  religious  habit. 
It  is  an  earnest  appeal  for  the  application  of  religion, 
real  religion,  to  life's  common  concerns.  We  used  to  think 
religion  consisted  in  saying  something;  today  we  are 
coming  to  believe  it  consists  in  being  something,  I  re- 
member an  old  country  deacon  of  the  David  Harum  type, 
whose  horse  deals  were  the  scandal  of  the  country-side, 
but  whose  professions  of  religion  were  loud  and  insistent. 
His  was  a  religion  of  saying  something.  Happily  this 
spurious,  counterfeit  type  which  brought  disgrace  to  the 
church,  is  passing.  Newer  and  severer  tests  are  being  ap- 
plied today  to  a  man's  faith,  and  while  there  must  reside 
behind  a  life  of  consistent  religious  habit  a  clearly  defined 
belief,  a  creed  of  some  sort,  the  world  is  asking  for  the 
practical  evidences  of  its  worth  as  disclosed  in  everyday 
living.  It  does  matter  that  we  believe  definitely  and  un- 
falteringly, it  does  matter  that  we  stand  for  fixity  of  con- 
viction. Let  the  man  with  a  creed — an  unfailing  belief  in 
the  Fatherhood  of  God,  show  it  in  daily  life  by  demon- 
strating his  belief  in  the  brotherhood  of  man.  Religion  is 
being  and  doing.  Says  a  wise  man:  "Neither  religion 
nor  philosophy  can  get  on  without  an  incarnation."  In 
other  words,  principles  must  be  vital,  operative  forces— 
and  be  it  said  with  all  insistence — the  vital  forces  of  our 
religion  must  speak  and  act  in  a  language  understood  of 
all  men.  We  have  known  some  so-called  exemplars  of 
religion  whose  every-day  expressions  of  their  faith  no 


14  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

man  could  understand.  To  get  down  to  the  root  of  it  all, 
the  religion  that  is  worth  while,  indeed  the  only  religion 
that  will  be  accepted  by  our  time  as  valid  and  genuine, 
is  the  religion  that  touches  market-place,  shop  and  fireside 
with  hopefulness  and  helpfulness.  It  is  the  religion  of 
clean  dealing,  clean  speaking,  clean  living;  the  religion 
of  fair  play,  that  despises  shams,  abhors  hypocrisies, 
loves  kindness  and  plucks  the  thorn  and  plants  the  rose, 
wherever  the  rose  will  grow. 

These  old  lines  of  an  Austrian  poet  are  suggestive : 

"The  parish  priest  of  Austerlitz 
Climb'd  up  in  a  high  church  steeple, 
To  be  nearer  God,  so  that  he  might  hand 
His  word  down  to  his  people. 

"And  in  sermon  script  he  daily  wrote 
What  he  thought  was  sent  from  heaven; 
i  And  he  dropped  this  down  on  his  people's  heads 

\  Two  times,  one  day  in  seven. 

"In  his  age,  God  said,  'Come  down  and  die;' 
And  he  cried  out  from  the  steeple; 
'Where  art  Thou,  Lord?'     And  his  Lord  replied, — 
'Down  here  among  my  people.'" 

"S.  0.  S." 

THE  signal  sent  by  the  mortally  wounded  Titanic, 
vibrating  through  the  sensitive  ether  was  caught  by 
another  ship  miles  away,  and  when  the  morning  came  the 
few  survivors  tossing  about  in  open  boats  in  the  wide 
Atlantic,  saw  in  the  oncoming  ship,  their  hope  and  their 
salvation.  The  story  of  this  awful  sea  tragedy  is  light- 
ened by  the  fine  and  ready  response  of  the  noble  ship, 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  15 


Carpathia.  You  and  I  are  so  sensitively  constituted,  that 
is,  we  are  if  we  are  normal  and  unhardened  by  life's 
stern  experiences,  that  the  cry  of  distress  issuing  from 
another  life  has  its  hearty  and  ready  response  in  our 
heart.  It  is  a  deadly  thing  to  get  so  utterly  selfish  and 
self-concerned  that  the  wireless  apparatus  of  the  heart 
is  deaf  and  unresponding  to  the  appeal  of  a  fellow  tra- 
veler on  life's  pilgrimage. 

This  world  has  been  so  ordered  by  God  through  an 
interlocking  of  human  interests  that  every  man  is,  in 
reality,  his  brother's  keeper.  No  one  sails  in  a  steamer 
today  unless  it  is  equipped  with  "wireless".  We  sleep 
more  securely  on  ship-board  when  we  know  it  is  there, 
and  working.  It  is  so  with  human  life.  What  a  dreary 
thing  it  is  to  feel  that  we  are  without  proper  and  intimate 
connection  with  other  lives.  The  un-wirelessed  man  is  a 
sad  mortal.  He  lives  such  a  life  as  Silas  Marner  did 
when  the  fires  of  his  heart  burned  low.  You  and  I  must 
have  sympathy  and  we  must  have  help,  no  matter  what 
our  cargo  may  be,  rich  or  poor,  big  or  small. 

The  poorest  man  is  the  man  with  a  broken  connection 
with  the  world  about  him ;  he  is  like  one  "without  God 
and  without  hope  in  the  world".  But  beyond  our  own 
satisfaction  of  being  in  touch  with  others,  what  a  deep, 
unspeakably  joyous  satisfaction  it  is  to  be  able  to  hear 
the  cry  of  another  fellow-mortal  in  distress,  and  hearing 
it  to  answer,  and  answering  to  bring  relief. 

God  made  us  with  a  far  more  sensitive  mechanism  than 
any  that  Marconi  ever  designed.  The  only  trouble  is, 
that  we  all  too  often  hurt  or  impair  the  instrument.  We 
can,  if  we  will,  be  life-bringers,  yes,  life-savers.  The  di- 
vinest  heart  that  ever  beat  was  the  heart  of  Him  Who 
said:  "I  am  come  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  was 
lost."    No  distress  signal  ever  failed  to  reach  Him;  it  is 


16  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 


little  wonder  that  men  hold  His  as  the  greatest  hfe  ever 
lived.  Every  one  of  us  can,  in  some  degree,  reproduce 
Him  Keep  the  heart  sensitive  and  attentive  to  the  call 
of  distress;  be  a  saver  of  men  on  life's  voyage  and  earn 
a  bit  of  heaven  down  here  and  the  assurance  of  an  ampler 

heaven  hereafter. 

m.    ^    ^ 

A  CHEERFUL  GOSPEL 

T>OBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON  once  said:  "The 
IV  Bible  is,  for  the  most  part,  a  cheerful  book;  it  is 
our  little  piping  theologies,  tracts  and  sermons  that  are 
dull  and  dowie."  For  one  reason  or  another,  because  of 
its  misinterpretation  or  a  misconception  of  its  purpose, 
the  Bible  as  a  book,  and  the  Gospel  message  itself,  are 
all  too  frequently  regarded  as  being  all  that  Stevenson 
says  "dull  and  dowie."  We  recall  that  a  United  States 
Senator  declared  that,  in  his  judgment  there  was  no  more 
popular  or  entertaining  book  in  the  world  than  the  Bible. 
It  is  not  the  book,  but  the  interpreter,  who  all  too  tre- 
quently  renders  it  uninteresting  and  unattractive.    ^^ 

Men  conceive  of  Jesus  as  the  "Man  of  Sorrows,    and 
they  fail  to  recognize  the  far  larger  fact  that  He  was  as 
well,  the  fountain  of  joy  and  inspiration.    He  had  much 
more  to  say  about  those  things  that  have  to  do  with  hfe  s 
highest  satisfactions,  its  true  joys  and  privileges  than  of 
those  things  that  have  to  do  with  stern  discipline.       I 
am  come  that  they  might  have  life,  and  that  they  might 
have  it  more  abundantly ;"  "I  am  the  light  of  the  world.^^ 
He  spoke  of  Himself  as  a  "fountain  of  living  waters,^^ 
as  "the  bread  of  life,"  as  the  "resurrection  and  the  hfe, 
descriptive  titles  that  emphasize  His  mighty  purpose  to 
bring  men  to  a  higher  standard  of  efficient  living.    We 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  17 

sometimes  wonder  why  it  is  that  parents,  in  attempting 
to  impress  upon  their  children  the  values  of  religion  lay- 
so  much  stress  upon  its  disciplines.  Why  not  talk  of  its 
privileges,  its  opportunities  and  its  joys  ?  Why  not  main- 
tain that  which  Jesus  maintained,  that  the  religious  life 
is  the  normal  life,  the  wholesome  life,  the  abundant  life? 
We  even  overcast  the  offices  of  public-meeting  religion 
with  shadow.  Our  very  buildings  at  times  are  suggestive 
of  death  itself.  Bishop  Potter  once  said  concerning  a 
building  of  this  kind :  "It  is  very  beautiful,  but  you  can- 
not see  in  it,  you  cannot  hear  in  it,  and  you  cannot  breathe 
in  it."  There  is  too  much  of  the  morgue-like  about  both 
our  religious  buildings  and  their  practices.  Architects, 
preachers  and  musicians  for  generations  seemed  to  in- 
terpret religion  as  a  somber  and  forbidding  thing.  The 
poet  talked  about  "the  dim,  religious  light."  It  was  little 
wonder  that  the  great  Whitfield,  preaching  under  sunny 
skies,  converted  thousands,  and  why?  Because  he 
preached  a  cheerful  Gospel.  True,  there  was  in  it  that 
which  spoke  of  discipline,  nor  was  it  an  easy,  so-called 
"comfortable"  Gospel.  It  was  a  Gospel  for  men  and 
women  who  demanded  strong  meat,  not  milk  for  babes. 

We  are  not  advocating  an  insipid  or  milk-and-water 
kind  of  Gospel,  but  we  are  advocating  more  of  the  ele- 
ment of  joy,  a  deep,  soul-satisfying  quality  in  the  pre- 
sentation of  the  things  of  religion.  Jesus  lived  His  life 
among  men;  He  was  not  a  recluse.  As  someone  says, 
He  was  "divinely  human."  He  interpreted  to  men  the 
God  of  hope,  and,  presenting  such  a  God,  He  filled  those 
who  followed  Him  with  "joy  and  peace  in  believing." 

"We  need  not  bid,  for  cloistered  cell. 
Our  neighbor  and  our  work  farewell; 
Room  to  deny  ourselves,  a  road 
That  brings  us  daily  nearer  God." 


18  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 


AS  A  MAN  THINKETH 

THE  writer  of  the  Proverbs  declared  that  as  a  man 
"thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he,"  and  another  ancient 
writer  maintained  "as  a  man  is,  so  is  his  strength."  The 
old  theory  that  heredity  and  environment  predetermine 
life's  efficiency  and  success,  as  well  as  its  mental  and 
moral  qualities,  has  been  rejected,  and  today  we  are  com- 
ing to  believe  more  and  more  that  each  life  in  itself  con- 
tains weaknesses  or  potentialities  that,  apart  from  all 
other  contributing  causes,  make  for  failure  or  success. 
This  is  not  to  deny  that  "I  am  a  part  of  all  that  I  have 
met,"  but  it  is  to  affirm  the  word  of  another  that,  "my 
mind  to  me  a  kingdom  is."  We  used  to  believe  that  a 
man  was  cursed  or  blessed  by  his  forebears,  or  that  en- 
vironment fixed  and  determined  his  capabilities.  We 
have  come  to  regard  this  as  a  monstrous  conception  and 
one  that  is  disproved  by  the  study  and  observation  of 
human  life.  The  man  who  begins  his  career  with  the 
notion  that  the  boundaries  of  his  life  are  inexorably  fixed, 
or  that  he  carries  as  an  inheritance  from  the  past  that 
which  impoverishes  and  weakens,  is  handicapped  and 
hopelessly  embarrassed  in  running  his  course. 

One  of  the  most  fascinating  things  we  may  observe  is 
the  repeated  demonstration  of  the  fact  that  poor  soil 
frequently  produces,  with  due  cultivation,  amazingly  rich 
results.    To  believe  that 

"Men  may  rise  on  stepping  stones 
Of  their  dead  selves  to  higher  things" 

is  to  inspire  and  encourage  the  best.  Those  who  mark 
time  to  failure  and  disappointment  are  in  the  main  those 
who  believe  that  they  were  born  under  an  "unlucky  star," 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  19 


or  who  refuse  to  believe  the  wise  man's  proverb  that  as 
a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he.    Supposing  Lincoln 
had  been  made  to  believe  in  his  boyhood  that  the  restrict- 
ing walls  of  a  log  cabin,  and  the  even  far  greater  limita- 
tions in  the  matter  of  education,  predetermined  the  whole 
course  of  his  life,  there  would  have  been  no  statesman, 
no  liberator,  no  mighty  champion  of  democracy  born.    As 
we  study  the  lives  of  men  we  are  more  and  more  im- 
pressed with  the  wisdom  of  the  saying  that  "a  man  is  the 
architect  of  his  own  fortunes."     Of  course  there  must 
be  exceptions  to  this  general  rule,  and  there  must  be 
those  who  seem  to  fall  victims  of   fortuitous  circum- 
stances, but  we  submit  that  they  are  exceptions.    There 
is  a  popular  fallacy  abroad  that  says  "it  does  not  matter 
what  a  man  believes  so  long  as  his  life  is  right,"  but  as  a 
matter  of  fact  a  man's  belief,  his  platform,  his  convic- 
tions, his  viewpoint,  have  a  determining  effect  upon  the 
whole  course  of  his  action.    The  more  we  can  come  to 
recognize  and  realize  that  we  are  in  ourselves  bundles  of 
potentialities  and  powers,  developed  or  undeveloped,  the 
more  surely  will  we  find  our  place  in  the  great  scheme  of 
things,  and  fit  ourselves  to  that  peculiar  purpose  or  end 
for  which  we  were  bom.     Someone  has  wisely  said: 
"Man  is  not  so  much  a  fact  as  a  possibility,"  and  a  still 
more  optimistic  writer  declared,  "it  doth  not  yet  appear 
what  we  shall  be."    To  "hitch  one's  wagon  to  a  star"  one 
must  not  be  hindered  by  the  accrued  liabilities  of  the  past. 


•t    a«    ac 


20  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 

N  THE  first  petition  of  the  Lord's  Prayer  we  have 
these  words :  "Thy  kingdom  come,  Thy  will  be  done 
on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven."  This  is  both  a  prayer  and  a 
statement  of  Christ's  mighty  purpose.  One  might  almost 
say  that  it  comprehends  the  whole  purpose,  which  is — 
the  setting  up  of  a  kingdom  of  righteousness  here  on 
earth.  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  well  says:  "The  church  and 
its  ministers  for  nineteen  centuries  have  been  praying: 
*Thy  kingdom  come,  Thy  will  be  done  on  earth.'  They 
should  preach  as  they  have  prayed.  Too  long  have  we 
been  trying  to  prepare  men  on  earth  for  a  kingdom  in 
Heaven."  We  sometimes  think  that  much  of  our  religion 
might  be  characterized  as  "watchful  waiting."  We  put 
forth  our  largest  efforts  for  the  ultimate  redemption  of 
men  in  a  hereafter,  and  we  fail  to  place  the  accent  where 
Jesus  placed  it.  His  Gospel  is  a  present-world  Gospel. 
The  redemption  of  mankind  from  those  things  that  are 
hurtful  to  body  and  soul  means  the  ushering  in  of  God's 
kingdom  now.  In  its  highest  conception,  this  kingdom 
is  not — 

"Some  far-oflf,  divine  event 

Towards  which  the  whole  creation  moves.'" 

There  is  no  doubt  about  it,  the  call  to  a  religious 
life  is  based  too  largely  upon  future  rewards.  These 
rewards  are  like  an  insurance  policy — they  mature  only 
upon  the  death  of  the  insured.  In  this  conception,  the 
premiums  we  pay  are  in  the  form  of  certain  self-imposed 
disciplines,  devotional  exercises,  etc.  How  many  accept 
the  religion  which  Jesus  Christ  taught  and  exemplified, 
as  a  means  of  health,  happiness  and  a  better  present 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  21 

world?  All  through  His  ministry,  the  Master  declared 
that  He  came  to  set  up  a  better  world-kingdom,  or,  tc 
employ  the  President's  language,  "to  make  this  a  safer 
world  in  which  to  live."  What  a  splendid  conception  the 
Kingdom  of  God  presents  when  we  conceive  of  man  as  a 
partner  with  God  in  a  great  world-betterment  scheme. 
Such  a  conception  makes  us  think  of  the  maxim  sub- 
mitted by  someone :  "I  shall  pass  through  this  world  but 
once.  Any  kind  word  that  I  may  say  or  any  kind  deed 
that  I  may  do,  let  me  do  it  now,  for  I  shall  not  pass  this 
way  again." 

This  petition  in  the  Lord's  Prayer  really  sets  forth 
the  high  purpose  of  life.  It  asserts  that  we  are  king- 
dom-builders. Never  has  there  been  a  time  in  the  world's 
history  when  it  needed  more  this  ideal  conception  of 
a  kingdom  of  righteousness.  If  all  of  us  who  profess 
to  believe  in  such  a  kingdom  were  to  get  busy  with  its 
promotion,  we  would  have  less  time  for  contentions  as  to 
forms  and  methods,  and  we  would  give  ourselves  more 
unreservedly  to  the  prosecution  of  those  things  that  really 
mean  a  better  and  more  wholesome  life  here  on  earth. 
God  evidently  designed  this  world  to  be  the  vestibule  to 
a  larger  and  better  world.  We  are  all  looking  forward 
to  the  final  accomplishment  of  a  future,  perfect  kingdom. 
Let  us  hasten  it,  by  making  the  world  here  correspond  in 
some  degree  to  this  supreme  ideal. 


22  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 


THE  SEARCH  FOR  PERMANENCE 

STANDING  beside  the  grave  of  Dwight  L.  Moody  in 
East  Northfield,  Massachusetts,  we  read  these  words 
carved  upon  a  massive  granite  slab :  "He  that  doeth  the 
will  of  God  abideth  forever."  Turning  to  his  son,  we 
commented  on  the  significance  of  the  passage,  whereupon 
he  said  that  it  represented  the  governing  principle  of  his 
father's  life.  Here  was  a  man  whose  value  to  mankind 
could  not  be  overstated.  To  almost  every  part  of  the 
world  he  had  gone,  proclaiming  to  men  this  fundamental 
rule  of  life  that  answers  man's  great  cry  for  permanence. 
It  is  little  wonder  that  thousands  round  the  world  rise 
up  and  call  him  blessed. 

We  stood  beside  another  and  more  pretentious  tomb; 
it  was  that  of  the  great  marshal  of  hosts  who  sleeps  the 
iron  sleep  in  his  porphyry  sarcophagus  beneath  the  golden 
dome  of  Des  Invalides — the  great  Napoleon.  About  his 
tomb  cluster  the  torn  battle  flags  that  speak  of  triumph 
in  the  field  of  action.  As  we  gazed  upon  his  tomb  we 
were  reminded  of  the  words  of  Gray's  Elegy: 

"All  that  beauty,  all  that  wealth  e'er  gave 
Await  alike  the  inevitable  hour ; 
The  paths  of  glory  lead  but  to  the  grave." 

That  he  left  a  name  that  ranks  among  the  great  of  the 
earth,  all  acknowledge,  but  the  contrast  between  the  per- 
manent value  of  his  work  and  influence  and  that  which 
Moody's  life  suggests  was  striking  indeed.  He  had 
sought  to  make  his  name  permanent  by  creating  a  vast 
material  fabric,  which  began  to  disintegrate  when  once 
his  star  had  set  at  Waterloo.    Moody  had  builded  upon 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  23 

surer  foundations,  not  upon  the  capricious  will  of  man 
but  upon  the  eternal  will  of  God. 

The  two  great  theories  of  life  to  which  these  men  wit- 
nessed are  strikingly  suggested  by  two  notable  poems. 
The  first  is  that  of  Omar,  the  materialist  and  pessimist. 
As  he  viewed  life,  he  saw  it  thus: 

"One  thing  is  certain  and  the  rest  is  lies; 
The  flower  that  once  is  blown  forever  dies." 

or  again, 

"I  sent  my  Soul  through  the  invisible, 
Some  letter  of  that  after-life  to  spell ; 
And  by-and-by  my  Soul  returned  to  me, 
And  answered,  I  myself,  am  heaven  and  hell." 

There  is  little  of  comfort  or  assurance  in  such  a  con- 
ception. 

Over  against  it  we  set  the  mighty  words  of  Tennyson, 
wrought  out  of  a  sorrow  that  almost  consumed  his  soul. 
After  wrestling  for  seventeen  years  with  the  problem  of 
life  and  death,  he  wrote  these  lines : 

"Strong  Son  of  God,  Immortal  love, 
Whom  we  that  have  not  seen  thy  face, 
By  faith,  and  faith  alone  embrace, 
Believing  where  we  cannot  prove." 

But  still  more  triumphant  are  the  words  of  his  Swan 
Song: 

"For  though  from  out  our  bourne  of  time  and  place 

The  flood  may  bear  me  far, 

I  hope  to  see  my  pilot,  face  to  face, 

When  I  have  crossed  the  bar." 


24 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

If  the  above  text  speaks  of  a  law  of  immortality,  it 
were  well  for  us  to  heed  its  mighty  lesson. 

The  one  condition  precedent  to  permanence,  is  the  ful- 
fillment of  the  will  of  God. 

"Our  wills  are  ours,  we  know  not  why 
Our  wills  are  ours  to  make  them  Thine." 

^     ^     ^ 

ARRESTED  DEVELOPMENT 

IT  IS  recorded  in  the  history  of  the  Children  of  Israel, 
that  when  they  moved  from  the  land  of  bondage 
and  were  on  their  way  to  the  land  of  promise,  they  came 
ultimately  to  Mount  Seir,  and  there  for  some  unknown 
reason  they  camped  indefinitely.  What  caused  indecision 
in  the  movement  is  not  related,  but  it  is  stated:  "We 
compassed  Mount  Seir  many  days,"  until  ultimately  the 
command  came :  "Ye  have  compassed  this  mountain  long 
enough.  Turn  northward."  Whereupon  the  great  camp 
struck  its  tents  and  moved  on  its  journey  toward  the  land 
of  promise. 

It  is  an  illustration  of  how  a  people,  as  well  as  an 
individual,  experiences  what  the  physicians  call,  "ar- 
rested development."  Something  happens  in  the  life  of  a 
body  and  immediately  it  ceases  to  grow  and  expand, 
and  we  are  told  that  when  a  body  ceases  to  grow  it 
begins  to  die.  We  constantly  observe  this  in  the  life  of 
peoples  and  individuals.  In  his  splendid  book,  "Mr. 
Britling  Sees  it  Through,"  Mr.  Wells  describes  the  situa- 
tion in  England  before  the  war  in  the  following  way : 
"Nothing  changes  in  England  because  the  people  who 
want  to  change  things,  change  their  minds  before  they 
change   anything  else,"  and   again,  "Unless   something 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  25 

tumbles  down  here  we  never  think  of  altering  it,  and  even 
then  we  just  shore  it  up." 

It  was  a  case  of  arrested  development,  and  what  is 
true  of  England  is  undoubtedly  true  of  much  of  our 
own  American  life.  We  come  to  the  rut-periods  where 
we  get  just  about  so  far  and  then  begin  to  move  in 
circles,  and  the  unfortunate  thing  is  that  we  think  move- 
ment necessarily  signifies  progress.  In  our  great  Civil 
War  there  was  a  long  period  in  which  there  was  a  good 
deal  of  movement,  but  no  progress,  until  at  length  an  un- 
attractive man  without  any  gold  braid  on  his  uniform 
emerged  from  the  Middle  West,  and  Lincoln  found  in 
him  the  master  of  the  situation.  In  passing,  it  is  inter- 
esting to  note  that  it  is  not  always  men  who  wear  the 
most  gold  braid  who  do  the  most  work,  either  in  public 
or  private  life. 

One  of  the  causes  of  arrested  development,  in  either 
corporate  or  individual  life,  is  conceit,  arrogance,  or  self- 
pride.  We  adopt  the  dangerous  policy,  "let  well  enough 
alone,"  and  where  communities  or  individuals  adopt  this 
policy  they  are  doomed  to  disappointment  and  defeat,  and 
ultimately  to  annihilation.  Let  the  business  man  think 
he  has  reached  the  climax  of  his  efficiency,  and  let  him 
begin  to  move  in  circles,  and  we  know  what  follows.  We 
have  compassed  our  Mount  Seir  long  enough,  and  the 
challenge  is  irresistible  to  us  as  a  people  and  as  individ- 
uals to  "move  forward." 

This  has  a  striking  application  to  our  moral  or  religious 
habit  of  life.  Somehow  or  other  in  this  particular  we 
seem  more  prone  to  sufifer  arrested  development  than  in 
anything  else.  Perhaps  we  think  ourselves  good  enough 
or  as  good  as  other  people.  In  our  religious  life,  culti- 
vation and  discipline  are  imperatively  demanded.  There 
is  no  easy  road  to  goodness  or  perfection  of  any  kind, 


2£ EVERYDAY  RELIGION ' 

and  we  are  in  a  bad  way  when  we  feel  satisfied  with 
ourselves.  Dissatisfaction  marks,  as  a  rule,  the  beginning 
of  a  change  of  some  sort,  and  one  of  the  convictions  we 
hold  is,  that  it  is  about  time  we  had  some  very  definite 
change  so  far  as  our  moral  and  religious  life  is  concerned. 
We  are  drifting  too  much.  We  are  too  much  affected  by 
fads  and  fancies.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  are  too  utter- 
ly self-satisfied  with  what  we  are.  This  whole  matter  of 
arrested  development  touches  every  phase  of  our  indi- 
vidual and  corporate  life.  Is  there  not  a  great  call  to 
the  world  at  large  today  to  "move  forward?" 


»e    It    «c 


A  SOLDIER'S  BIBLE 

THE  writer  of  the  Psalms,  evidently  passing  through 
a  crisis,  declared:  "In  the  time  of  my  trouble  I 
sought  the  Lord."  It  is  an  amazing  fact  that  adversity 
seems  to  be  one  of  the  means  by  which  men  are  com- 
pelled to  look  for  strength  and  comfort  to  the  divine 
Father.  Few,  if  any  are  saved  through  prosperity; 
thousands  have  recovered  or  been  brought  to  a  realization 
of  their  need  through  adversity.  Prosperity  has  a  tend- 
ency to  enervate  and  to  destroy  the  moral  fibre.  Ad- 
versity discloses  our  strength  and  encourages  higher 
thinking  and  nobler  living.  The  revealing  power  of  mis- 
fortune is  evident  in  almost  every  life.  Nations  and  peo- 
ples that  have  had  long  periods  of  prosperity  have  become 
sterile  and  stagnant,  so  far  as  their  religious  impulses 
were  concerned.  Prosperity  tends  to  insularity,  selfish- 
ness and  arrogance.    No  one  seeks  adversity  in  any  form, 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  27 

and  yet  every  page  of  history  declares,  that  nations  and 
individuals  have  been  reborn  through  the  hardships  and 
disciplines  of  misfortune  and  adversity. 

One  of  the  best  examples  of  this  that  we  have  come 
across  for  some  time,  is  disclosed  in  a  soldier's  Bible  that 
was  found  on  the  field  of  Flanders,  owned  by  one  Ray- 
mond Lodge,  the  son  of  the  distinguished  Sir  Oliver  y 
Lodge.  When  the  Bible  was  returned  to  his  mother,  she 
found  its  pages  glued  together  with  the  blood  of  her  son. 
One  day  in  opening  the  book,  she  disclosed  on  its  fly- 
leaf a  number  of  passages  that  Raymond  had  evidently 
selected  for  his  inspiration  and  guidance,  while  living 
the  exposed  life  in  the  trenches.  Mrs.  Lodge  says  :  "The 
religious  side  of  Raymond  was  hardly  known  to  the  fam- 
ily." And  yet,  whether  known  or  unknown,  this  young 
man  of  twenty-six,  carefully  trained  and  nurtured,  and 
highly  educated,  in  the  hour  of  his  need  turned  for  com- 
fort and  direction  to  the  Book  of  books.  We  have  rarelj' 
known  finer  discrimination  in  the  selection  of  passages 
than  this  youth  disclosed.  Among  them  were  these: 
"The  Eternal  God  is  thy  refuge,  and  underneath  are  the 
everlasting  arms."  "They  that  wait  upon  the  Lord  shall 
renew  their  strength;  they  shall  run  and  not  be  weary, 
and  they  shall  walk  and  not  faint."  The  whole  incident 
is  in  demonstration  of  the  point,  that  a  crisis  in  life  con- 
stitutes its  rare  opportunity,  or  to  use  the  language  of 
another :    "Our  importunity  is  God's  opportunity." 

Shall  not  we  of  America  believe  that  out  of  the  present 
world-crisis  there  is  coming  a  newer  and  finer  manhood, 
a  nobler  quality  of  faith  in  God,  and  a  clearer  recognition 
of  our  obligations  to  one  another.  Evidently  Lieutenant 
Lodge  realized  on  the  battle-field  more  clearly  than  ever, 
the  mighty  significance  of  the  two  great  commandments 
given  by  Jesus :    "Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with 


28  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

all  thy  heart,"  and,  "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as 
thyself." 

Perhaps  the  Bible  carried  in  the  soldier's  equipment 
on  the  field  of  action  is  to  take  on  a  new  meaning,  and 
we  are  to  realize  more  than  we  have  ever  realized  before, 
not  only  our  relation  and  obligation  to  God,  but  our 
relation  and  obligation  to  our  fellows.  Just  now  in  the 
time  of  our  trouble,  in  the  time  of  the  world's  trouble,  let 
us  set  our  faces  God-ward,  and  realize  that  in  spite  of  all 
human  weakness  and  failure,  yes,  and  wickedness  too, 
God's  purposes  are  working  themselves  out,  and  that  man 
reaches  the  highest  approximation  of  efficiency  when  he 
is  consciously  and  consecratedly  promoting  God's  self- 
evident  plans.  It  was  with  this  sublime  hope  of  God's 
provident  care  that  Whittier  wrote : 

"I  know  not  what  the  future  hath 
Of  marvel  or  surprise, 
Assured  alone  that  life  and  death 
His  mercy  underlies. 

I  know  not  where  His  islands  lift 
Their  fronded  palms  in  air, 
I  only  know  I  cannot  drift 
Beyond  His  love  and  care." 

A  MAN'S  PRIVILEGE 

ONE  of  the  finest  passages  with  which  we  are  fa- 
miliar that  sets  forth  man's  privilege  as  a  world- 
citizen,  is  this  one:  "A  man  shall  be  as  a  hiding  place 
from  the  wind,  and  a  covert  from  the  tempest ;  as  rivers 
of  water  in  a  dry  place,  as  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in 
a  weary  land."        Emerson  once  asked  the  question: 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  29 

"What  makes  a  nation  great?"  and  answered  it  by  say- 
ing:   "The  kind  of  men  it  turns  out." 

The  above  passage  is  part  of  the  record  that  tells  of 
a  nation's  recovery.  It  is  also  an  appeal  for  the  recog- 
nition of  the  supreme  place  of  character.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  it  was  written  for  a  people  that  was  anxious  con- 
cerning its  security.  The  national  permanence  seemed 
to  be  imperiled,  and  there  was  a  wide-spread  feeling  of 
deep  distrust  and  unrest.  How  to  maintain  the  nation's 
stability  was  the  large  question  of  the  hour.  The  prophet 
declares  that  he  is  the  best  citizen  who  constitutes  a 
source  of  retreat,  protection  and  inspiration  to  his  fel- 
lows. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  not  many  men,  but  few, 
constitute  in  each  period  of  human  history  the  sources  of 
guidance  and  direction  to  their  fellows.  They  stand  out 
conspicuously  above  the  average  and  mediocre,  and  in  a 
striking  way  illustrate  the  significant  language  of  our 
text.  Such  were  Robert  E.  Lee  and  Stonewall  Jackson 
to  the  South,  and  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Ulysses  S.  Grant 
to  the  North  in  our  Civil  War.  Such  have  been  the  men 
who  have  shaped  and  fashioned  the  ideals  and  destinies 
of  an  age,  and  by  sheer  force  of  character  compelled  men 
to  recognize  them.  Obviously,  we  cannot  all  be  heroic 
figures;  most  of  us  are  of  the  average  sort,  and  yet, 
every  last  one  of  us  can,  in  some  measure  approximate 
the  ideal.  The  Prophet's  word  suggests  how  to  live 
unselfishly  and  helpfully  for  the  world  about  us.  A 
humble  ambulance  driver  on  the  battle  front  may  not  be 
as  conspicuous  as  the  general  who  commands  a  division 
or  the  captain  who  directs  a  company,  but  the  place  he 
fills  is  indispensable  and  supremely  important,  and  we 
are  bound  to  believe  that,  to  the  sufiferers  whom  he  car- 
ries back  to  the  waiting  physicians  and  nurses,  he  is  as 


30  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

a  hiding  place  from  the  wind,  a  covert  from  the  tempest, 
as  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  a  weary  land. 

Just  now,  one  of  the  popular  phrases  is :  "Every  man 
must  do  his  bit."  In  other  words,  we  are  all  challenged 
by  the  magnitude  of  present  events  to  do  something  other 
than  our  common  task  or  to  work  only  for  our  personal, 
selfish  interests.  The  world  is  clamoring  for  the  ex- 
emplification of  the  practical  values  of  religion,  and  is 
saying  to  every  one  of  us:  "Show  me  thy  faith  by  thy 
works."  What  a  magnificent  opportunity  is  presented  to- 
day to  live  this  ideal  life!  How  immense  are  the  priv- 
ileges of  this  pregnant  hour!  Must  we  not  believe  that 
God  is  conscripting  men  for  service  now  as  never  before, 
and  that  selfishness  and  self-ease,  indolence  and  self- 
seeking,  are  to  give  way  to  all  those  finer  qualities  that 
make  for  the  higher  satisfactions  and  joys  and  peace  of 
life?  There  are  few,  if  any,  truer  words  than  these: 
"He  that  loseth  his  life,  shall  find  it." 

ON  BEING  COURTEOUS 

THE  lubricant  that  makes  the  wheels  of  the  social 
and  commercial  machinery  move  without  friction,  is 
courtesy,  the  recognition  of  what  we  sometimes  call,  "the 
little  amenities  of  life."  We  often  hear  the  expression: 
"It  costs  nothing  to  be  courteous,"  and  it  is  true.  Yet, 
how  infrequently  do  we  meet  a  person  who  is  altogether 
courteous  in  all  the  contacts  of  life. 

Recently  we  read  of  a  so-called  "Steel  King,"  of  whom 
it  was  said  that  he  won  his  way  to  fame  and  prosperity 
through  courtesy  and  kindliness.  There  are  some  people 
who  can  say  "no"  to  us  and  do  it  in  such  a  way  as  to 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  31 


make  us  happy.  There  are  others  who  say  "yes"  and 
seem  to  agree  with  us,  and  yet  they  ruffle  up  our  spirits 
and  hurt  our  pride. 

Courtesy  is  the  expression  of  our  finer  self,  the  recog- 
nition by  us  of  the  interests  of  others,  the  delicate  ap- 
preciation on  our  part  of  human  feelings,  and  the  dis- 
criminating acknowledgment  of  varying  temperaments. 
To  be  courteous  means  to  express  in  a  splendid  way  our 
Christian  conviction,  for  one  of  the  commands  of  our 
religion  is  "be  courteous"  and,  again,  "be  ye  kind,  one 
to  another."  We  have  always  liked  that  word:  "He 
would  not  break  the  bruised  reed,  nor  quench  the  smok- 
ing flax."  To  be  courteous  means  to  be  thoughtful  at  all 
times  of  the  feelings  of  others.  We  can  hardly  think  of 
a  courteous  man  being  abrupt  or  ready  to  censure  with- 
out due  reflection.  A  courteous  person  is  deferential  in 
a  proper  sense,  is  not  intrusive,  is  not  self-conceited  or  ar- 
rogant. It  would  be  well  if  in  our  schools  we  had  a 
department  given  over  to  the  recognition  and  cultivation 
of  this  important  quality,  for,  after  all,  it  is  a  thing  to  be 
developed.  Few  of  us  are  courteous  by  instinct.  Only 
now  and  again  we  meet  a  man  who  is  essentially  chival- 
rous, or  a  woman  who  is  essentially  gracious  and 
thoughtful  about  small  matters. 

There  lived  in  this  city  for  many  years  as  one  of  its 
foremost  millers,  a  man  who  was  distinguished  for  this 
ennobling  quality.  The  very  atmosphere  of  his  offices 
was  surcharged  with  it,  every  officer  and  clerk  came 
under  its  refreshing  spell.  Men  called  him  a  "courtly 
man."  Why?  Because  his  life  expressed  through  its 
every  word  and  act  the  thoughtful,  chivalrous  courtesy 
of  a  Christian  gentleman.  Part,  and  no  small  part,  of 
his  conspicuous  success  was  due  to  his  unfailing  cour- 
tesy. 


32  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

Courtesy  extends  to  everything  in  life,  even  to  the  mat- 
ter of  letter  writing.  To  fail  to  answer  a  note  is  an  act 
of  discourtesy,  and  even  the  phrasing  of  a  note  discloses, 
as  possibly  nothing  else  does,  this  quality  in  one's  nature. 
To  be  courteous  in  a  public  conveyance  means  to  rec- 
ognize the  priority  of  woman's  claim  to  comfort  and  if 
more  of  us  were  courteous  there  would  be  fewer  delicate 
women  strap-hanging.  Our  youth  are  admonished  that 
they  must  "hustle,"  but  no  "hustler"  has  time  for  acts 
of  courtesy.  He  is  too  engrossed  in  "getting  there." 
In  no  place  does  courtesy  have  a  larger  value  than  in 
the  recognition  of  and  reverence  for  old  age.  We 
sometimes  think  there  would  be  more  Christians  in  the 
world  if  what  we  are  pleading  for  were  more  widely 
recognized. 

n   n   n 

THE  CALL  FOR  SIMPLICITY 


**T  ET  him  do  it  with  simplicity."  While  life  has  be- 
JL>  come  more  complex  and  interrelated  and  while  on 
every  hand  we  are  witnessing  changes  that  indicate  that 
the  world  generally  is  demanding  more  conveniences  and 
better  facilities  as  well  as  added  luxuries,  yet  at  the  same 
time  we  believe  that  underlying  all  our  so-called  modem 
demands,  there  is  a  persistent  cry  for  more  simplicity. 
This  discloses  itself  in  many  ways.  We  have  a  revival 
of  the  old  fashioned  furnishings  of  the  Colonial  days. 
Indeed,  our  architecture  is  in  large  part  an  attempt  to  re- 
produce in  exterior  and  interior  the  New  England  home. 
The  writers  who  affect  us  most  deeply  are  the  writers 
who  tell  of  the  homely,  simple  things  of  life.  This  is 
why  Charles  Dickens  continues  to  be  in  many  respects 
the  most  popular  of  novelists.    Balzac,  the  great  French 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  33 

writer,  successfully  attempted  to  interpret  "The  Human 
Comedy,"  and  holds  his  unchallenged  place  in  the  French 
school.  The  poets  who  touch  us  most  deeply  are  not 
those  who  obscure  their  meaning  in  fine  phrases,  but 
those  who  express  the  simple  yearnings  of  the  human 
heart,  as  does  Robert  Burns  and  our  own  splendid  Whit- 
tier.  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  judged  by  class-room  stan- 
dards, might  have  been  regarded  as  lacking  form  and 
style  in  his  preaching.  He  was  simple,  homely,  and  il- 
lustrated his  discourses  from  the  common  things  of  life, 
with  the  result  that  he  was  the  greatest  preacher  of  his 
age. 

We  sometimes  think  our  musicians  make  a  mistake  in 
trying  to  over-cultivate  us.  We  believe  in  the  classics 
and  we  study  them,  but  we  should  hate  to  be  fed  on 
them  forever.  It  is  an  interesting  thing  to  observe  that 
a  sweet  Irish  singer  of  international  fame,  with  his  old 
fashioned  melodies  can  attract  nightly,  audiences  that 
equal  those  of  the  grand  opera,  and  why?  Because  he 
appeals  to  the  finer  emotions ;  in  other  words  he  touches 
the  heart  and  he  does  it  in  a  song  language  that  the 
people  understand.  Whether  our  wiseacres  in  literature, 
music  or  art  will  do  so  or  not,  the  people  are  willing  to 
go  just  about  so  far,  and  then  they  demand,  for  relaxa- 
tion, the  homely  and  the  simple  things.  We  cannot  be  fed 
on  pate  de  foie  gras  and  other  delicacies  all  the  time.  It 
destroys  our  palates. 

What  is  true  of  these  other  things  is  pre-eminently 
true  of  the  things  of  religion.  We  have  read  some 
sermons  of  so-called  great  theologians  that  paralyzed 
every  emotion  of  our  being.  True,  they  were  learned 
and  pre-eminently  scholarly,  but  they  made  no  appeal  to 
the  heart.  They  were  born  in  the  atmosphere  of  a  re- 
frigerator.   We  know  other  men  who  have  no  distinction 


34 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

as  great  preachers,  yes,  and  we  know  some  laymen  of 
the  same  kind,  and  their  simple  utterances,  unadorned 
with  the  flowers  of  rhetoric  and  in  some  respects  unin- 
formed, so  far  as  theology  is  concerned,  go  straight  to 
and  reach  the  heart. 

Why  cannot  we  be  more  simple,  less  affected,  less 
superficial?  Why  cannot  we  bring  up  our  children  to 
realize  that  the  best  things  in  the  world  and  the  only 
things  really  worth  having  are  the  simple,  homely  things  ? 
Even  beauty  itself  appeals  to  us  more  strongly  where  it 
is  unaffected  and  unconscious  beauty.  Let  us  try  to  get 
back  some  of  the  old  graces  and  simplicities  of  life,  and 
even  if  we  must  live  in  an  age  of  infinite  change  and 
variety,  let  us  not  lose  out  of  our  lives  those  elements 
that  make  for  real  happiness. 

"         •*        ^ 

WHO  IS  MY  NEIGHBOR? 

**TT  THO  is  my  neighbor?"  This  is  taken  from  one  of 
VV  the  most  strikingly  suggestive  stories  that  Jesus 
ever  told.  The  incidents  are  familiar.  A  man  goes 
down  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho  and  falls  among  thieves. 
He  is  left  by  the  roadside  for  dead.  Presently  a  priest 
passes  by  and  witnesses  the  man's  condition,  gives  him 
no  help  and  continues  on  his  way.  He  is  followed  by 
another  officer  of  the  church,  a  Levite,  who  is  a  bit  more 
considerate.  He  goes  and  looks  at  the  man,  recognizes 
the  seriousness  of  his  situation,  but  gives  him  no  aid  and 
passes  by  on  the  other  side.  Then  follows  a  Samaritan, 
one  of  a  despised  and  rejected  group,  a  social  outcast, 
a  pariah,  whose  relations  with  the  Jews  are  remote 
and  indifferent.     He  goes  to  the  man,  cares   for  him, 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  35 

binds  up  his  wounds,  takes  him  to  an  inn,  pays  his 
charges  and  insures  his  recovery.  "Which  of  these," 
said  Christ,  "was  neighbor  unto  him  that  fell  among 
thieves?"  The  answer  is  obvious  and  immediate.  "He 
that  showed  mercy  on  him."  "Go  and  do  thou  likewise," 
said  Jesus  to  the  lawyer. 

This  is  the  best  story  on  neighborliness  that  we  know 
of  in  all  the  literature  of  the  world.  What  an  enlarged 
and  splendid  conception  it  gives  us  of  our  responsibility ! 
How  it  widens  our  horizons  and  gives  us  new  visions  of 
our  obligations !  We  used  to  think  of  neighborhood  and 
neighbor  as  terms  that  defined  certain  restricted  areas 
and  certain  closely  related  peoples — those  whose  lives  in 
some  wise  impinged  upon  our  own ;  these  were  our 
neighbors.  All  this  is  being  changed  today.  Titanic 
forces  are  bringing  us  into  closer  fellowship  and  relation- 
ship with  races  and  peoples  remote.  As  some  one  says : 
"The  world  has  become  a  vast  whispering  gallery,"  and 
a  word  spoken  in  far-away  Tokio  is  heard  in  New  York 
in  an  incredibly  brief  space  of  time.  The  doings  on  the 
battlefields  of  Europe  of  yesterday  are  chronicled  in  this 
morning's  papers.  From  China  or  from  the  heart  of 
Africa  the  fleet-footed  messengers  carry  the  news,  and 
even  the  ether  itself,  through  the  wireless  telegraph 
system,  has  become  as  a  new  link  to  bind  peoples  to- 
gether. We  live  in  a  neighborhood  that  comprehends 
the  world,  and  the  men  or  women  who  are  simply  satis- 
fied with  their  little  limited  spheres  or  who  exercise  their 
responsibilities  within  a  restricted  area,  are  hardly  wor- 
thy of  citizenship  in  the  great  neighborhood  of  nations. 
Boasting  of  our  American  citizenship,  (as  well  we  may) 
let  us  remember  that  within  the  past  few  years  we  have 
overleaped  seas  and  now  we  are  clasping  hands  as  broth- 
ers, with  our  neighbors  in  France  and  Belgium,  in  Italy 


36  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

and  England.  What  a  new  conception  of  the  terms, 
"Neighbor"  and  "Neighborhood"  we  have  today ! 

It  has  taken  the  world  nineteen  centuries  to  catch, 
even  partially,  the  mighty  meaning  of  this  old  story.  It 
has  been  a  selfish,  cold,  unneighborly  sort  of  a  world, 
with  a  leaning  to  the  maxim :  "every  man  for  himself  and 
the  devil  take  the  hindmost." 

There  has  been  precious  little  altruism  in  business  un- 
til recent  times  and  much  of  selfish  insularity  about  our 
social  life  and  practices.  We  believe  this  is  rapidly 
changing  and  there  are  clear  and  unmistakable  signs  that 
we  are  moving  forward  to  the  day  when, 

"Man  to  man,  the  world  o'er 
Shall  brithers  be  for  a'  that." 

This  spirit  must  come  more  conspicuously  into  our  own 
national  life.  Here  we  are,  a  vast  polyglot  nation,  made 
up  of  many  old  world  peoples.  Hitherto  we  have  be- 
trayed signs  that  we  were  altogether  too  heterogeneous 
and  unassimilated,  perhaps  dangerously  so.  We  have 
needed  some  unifying  and  commanding  purpose  to  fuse 
us  together ;  we  have  grown  smug  and  selfish  and  danger- 
ously independent;  now  all  this  must  be  changed,  if  we 
are  to  endure.  The  man  who  says :  "Am  I  my  brother's 
keeper?"  and  who  rejects  his  responsibility  to  his  fellows, 
must  be  branded  and  banned  as  a  traitor.  Everywhere 
and  in  everything  we  must  understand  and  cultivate  our 
social  responsibility.  Let  us  have  done  with  all  caddish- 
ness  and  cheap,  snobbish  pride,  and  let  us  bend  every 
energy  to  make  America  more  truly  the  "land  of  the 
free  and  the  home  of  the  brave." 

After  all,  the  old  Latin  poet  had  a  fine  and  Christian 
conception  of  life  when  he  wrote:  "I  am  a  man,  and 
nothing  that  is  human  is  foreign  to  me."     The  world 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  37 

must  be  made  a  safe  neighborhood  in  which  to  live,  and 
a  neighborhood  impHes  neighborly  fellowship,  and  neigh- 
borly fellowship  implies  social  responsibility. 

THE  FAITH  OF  A  SOLDIER 

"TJOLD  Thou  me  up  and  I  shall  be  safe."  That  the 
Al.  faith  of  a  soldier  should  be  different  from  that  of 
other  men  is  hardly  to  be  expected,  and  yet  the  very 
exigencies  and  extremes  of  life  with  which  the  soldier 
deals,  call  for  and  demand  something  more  heroic  in  the 
way  of  faith  than  is  recognized  or  practiced  by  the 
average  layman.  In  days  of  peace  when  the  humdrum 
of  life  is  commonplace,  unfortunately  religious  faith  and 
conviction  seem  to  become  matters  of  indifference,  color- 
less and  altogether  lacking  in  any  of  the  heroic  elements. 
There  is  something  thrilling  about  the  faith  of  the  Cru- 
saders. While  it  may  have  expressed  itself  at  times  in 
a  zeal  that  lacked  both  moderation  and  intelligence,  it 
was,  nevertheless,  something  that  won  the  admiration 
and  praise  of  men  generally.  We  are  not  made  strong 
by  pursuing  the  line  of  least  resistance,  and  if  the 
muscles  of  the  body  become  weak  and  flabby  from  lack 
of  exercise,  may  we  not  believe  that  the  muscles  of  the 
soul  or  of  the  spiritual  man  lose  their  vigor  and  vitality 
when  lightly  exercised  or  used  ? 

Recently  we  received  a  letter  that  describes  the  average 
life  of  an  average  Christian  young  man  before  and  since 
he  entered  the  service.    We  quote  from  it : 

"He  had  been  made  to  attend  Church  all  his  life.  He 
could  not  have  quite  understood  it,  but  now  that  he  does 
his  own  thinkinof  he  has  swung  to  the  other  extreme.  He 


38  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

doubts  everything — God,  Christ,  the  verity  of  the  Bible 
— and  feels  that  religion  and  the  forms  of  the  Church 
are  emotional,  yet,  to  cap  it  all  he  wants  to  believe,  but 
not  blindly." 

This  seems  to  be  of  a  piece  vi^ith  Donald  Hankey's 
description  in  his  "Student  in  Arms"  of  the  soldier  in 
the  trenches.  He  speaks  of  the  "inarticulate  faith"  of 
the  men.  He  maintains  that  to  many  of  them  the  mere 
forms  of  religion  make  little  or  no  appeal,  and  yet,  in 
the  heart  of  almost  every  one  of  them,  resides  a  deep, 
fundamental  religious  conviction.  He  raises  the  question 
whether  the  Church  at  large  has  not  misunderstood  the 
youth  of  our  generation,  and  whether  it  has  not  sought 
to  interpret  religion  to  them  in  a  language  which  they 
fail  to  understand.  The  question  is  a  very  pertinent  one, 
and  must  be  considered  by  every  thoughtful  religious 
worker.  Our  observation  leads  us  to  think  that  the  stren- 
uous service  of  camp  life,  with  all  its  multiform  tempta- 
tions, conduces  to  more  serious  reflection  and  a  more  ur- 
gent demand  for  the  sustaining  power  and  comfort  of 
religion.  It  is  no  uncommon  thing  for  a  young  man  or 
woman  to  come  to  a  period  in  life  where  they  have 
doubts,  and  indeed  very  frequently  this  very  period  of 
doubt  and  misgiving  leads  to  a  larger,  stronger  and  finer 
faith.  Even  the  great  Master  Himself  had  His  wilder- 
ness experience,  and  out  of  it,  divine  though  He  was,  he 
came  to  his  mighty  tasks  refreshed  and  stimulated,  and 
ready  to  go  to  Calvary. 

It  may  be  possible  that  the  present  testing  of  the 
world's  faith,  through  the  hardships  and  sacrifices  of  its 
Calvary,  is  to  result  in  a  newer,  more  understandable 
and  more  virile  expression  of  religion  in  the  life  of  the 
people.  We  are  perfectly  clear  that  a  faith  that  expresses 
itself  only  in  perfunctory  services,  is  unsustaining  and 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 39 

impracticable.  On  the  other  hand,  we  are  very  clear  that 
a  crisis,  such  as  the  present  one,  calls  for  a  positive  and 
definite  expression  of  religion,  an  expression  that  is  not 
blind  but  strong  and  definite  in  its  trust  in  the  upholding, 
sustaining  and  saving  power  of  Almighty  God.  Perhaps 
it  may  not  take  on  the  most  refined  expression,  but  it 
must  be  positive  and  it  must  demonstrate  itself  through 
conduct.  It  was  a  soldier  in  Flanders  who,  after  passing 
through  a  long  period  of  doubt,  just  before  he  fell  in 
action,  learned  to  lean  upon  the  word,  "Hold  Thou  me 
up  and  I  shall  be  safe."  Though  he  fell  facing  the  en- 
emy, he  was  conscious  with  his  latest  breath  that  the 
great  enigma  of  life  had  been  solved  and  that  death 
was  but  the  opening  of  the  gateway  into  life,  full  and 
abundant.  It  is  such  a  faith  that  is  universally  demanded 
today  to  sustain  the  hearts  and  minds  of  mankind. 

KEEPING  CLEAN 

WHAT  a  splendid  habit  of  thinking  and  practice  is 
found  in  that  passage :  "Whatsoever  things  are 
true,  whatsoever  things  are  honorable,  whatsoever  things 
are  just,  whatsoever  things  are  pure,  whatsoever  things 
are  lovely,  whatsoever  things  are  of  good  report, — think 
on  these  things." 

The  habit  of  keeping  clean  does  not  begin  and  end 
with  the  bath.  There  are  many  of  us  who  try  to  be 
clean  outwardly,  and  measurably  succeed,  but  we  have 
known  people  of  immaculate  exteriors  who  lacked  inner 
cleanliness  and  purity  of  life.  It  is  a  singular  thing,  but 
quite  universal,  (and  a  close  observer  of  men  comes  to 
recognize  it,)  that  the  habit  of  one's  thinking  comes  in 


40  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

due  time  to  disclose  itself  in  one's  face.  Whether  the 
face  is  the  index  of  character  or  not  may  be  a  debatable 
question.  We  do  know  that  Leonardo  da  Vinci  was  able 
to  cover  up  the  viciousness  of  his  private  life  by  exhibit- 
ing to  the  world  some  of  the  finest  art  it  has  ever  known, 
and  we  also  know  that  there  have  been  many  producers 
of  beautiful  things  in  art  and  music  whose  inner  lives 
have  been  far  from  clean  and  wholesome.  How  often 
the  art  of  such  a  painter  as  Leonardo,  loses  something 
of  its  power  and  persuasiveness  because  we  remember 
the  unwholesomeness  of  his  habit  of  life. 

The  germ  of  mental  uncleanness  or  heart  impurity  may 
be  found  in  some  incident  or  story  related,  perhaps  with- 
out design,  by  an  unwitting  and  unwise  speaker,  that, 
falling  upon  the  responsive  soil  of  a  youthful  nature, 
springs  up  and  bears  fruit  in  words  and  deeds  of  shame 
and  bitterness.  What  a  fine  encomium  was  pronounced 
upon  one  of  our  martyred  presidents  in  the  words,  "He 
wore  the  white  flower  of  a  blameless  life."  Some  of  our 
so-called  wits  and  after  dinner  speakers  would  think 
more  seriously  of  what  they  say  in  public  gatherings,  if 
they  realized  the  balefulness  of  an  incident  related  by 
them  to  provoke  a  laugh,  that  had  in  it  an  element  that 
was  lacking  in  cleanliness  and  wholesomeness. 

To  keep  clean  mentally,  means,  too,  to  keep  the  heart 
and  mind  stored  with  choice  things  and  to  crowd  out 
the  bad  and  the  vicious.  "Tell  that  story  to  Gladstone," 
said  a  brilliant  member  of  Parliament  to  one  of  his  col- 
leagues in  a  great  London  Club.  The  Grand  Old  Man 
had  just  entered  the  room,  but  a  discreet  silence  fell 
upon  the  speaker.  He  would  not  dare  tell  the  Prime 
Minister  the  incident  he  had  so  glibly  related.  Why? 
Because  of  the  cleanly  character  of  Gladstone,  that  for- 
bade everything  that  savored  of  indecency. 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  41 

Let  us  keep  clean.  Let  us  have  about  us  books  and 
objects  that  make  for  clean  thinking  and  wholesome 
living.  Let  us  avoid  any  form  of  drama,  however  highly 
recommended  by  so-called  critics,  that  smacks  of  the  im- 
pure. Let  us  regard  with  suspicion  and  contempt  any 
one  who  acts  as  the  channel  or  transmitter  of  that  which 
is  unwholesome  or  unclean. 

THE  BETTER  COUNTRY 

SPEAKING  of  a  group  of  men  and  women  who  had 
lived  the  heroic  life,  the  writer  of  the  Book  of  He- 
brews says:  "They  were  strangers  and  pilgrims  on  the 
earth,"  and  he  adds,  "But  now  they  desire  a  better  coun- 
try." The  passage  suggests  the  life  of  the  pioneer.  It 
seems  to  say  to  us  that  life  is  an  unending  search  for 
new  frontiers.  It  also  seems  to  suggest  that  dissatisfac- 
tion in  one  form  or  another  marks  every  forward  step 
in  the  progress  of  mankind.  Somebody  once  said :  "Man 
is  an  eternal  becoming,"  and  a  New  Testament  writer 
says :    "It  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be." 

There  is  a  kind  of  dissatisfaction  with  life's  conditions 
that  is  far  from  commendable.  It  is  the  dissatisfaction 
of  the  one  who  is  unworthy  or  incapable  of  better  things. 
The  dissatisfactions  that  have  marked  the  forward  move- 
ments of  the  race  have  been  born  of  nobler  impulses. 
Had  it  not  been  for  the  dissatisfaction  of  our  fathers 
with  old  world  conditions,  America  had  not  been  born. 
Had  it  not  been  for  the  restlessness  of  the  world's  great 
dreamers,  the  story  of  our  marvelous  age  of  invention, 
with  its  myriad  mechanisms  for  greater  human  comfort 
and  convenience,  would  not  have  been.     The  upward 


42  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

reach  of  the  human  mind  away  from  old  and  unsatisfy- 
ing conditions  has  determined  and  fixed  the  progress 
of  mankind  from  age  to  age.  Yes,  life  is  an  unending 
search  for  new  frontiers.  We  are  ever  crying  for  new 
worlds  to  conquer.  All  science,  all  art,  all  literature,  all 
statesmanship,  all  inventive  genius,  has  progressed  only 
as  it  has  pressed  forward  to  new  frontiers  and  achieve- 
ments. Standing  at  our  present  place  of  vantage,  our 
occupied  territory,  we  reach  out  as  pilgrims,  as  adventur- 
ers, for  new  fields  of  conquest.  What  of  the  soul's  as- 
piration ?  Beecher  once  said :  "Our  yearnings  are  our 
homesicknesses  for  heaven."  Is  it  not  true  that  we  are 
never  wholly  satisfied  here?  Is  there  not  something  in 
man  that  cries  out  for  the  better  country?  No  matter 
what  our  environing  conditions  may  be,  there  is  that 
within  us  that  ever  anticipates  and  looks  forward  to 
something  better  and  finer.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  had 
this  in  mind  when  he  wrote  in  his  Chambered  Nautilus: 

"Build  thee  more  stately   mansions,   O  my  soul. 
As  the  swift  seasons  roll ; 
Leave  thy  low-vaulted  past; 
Let  each  new  temple,  nobler  than  the  last, 
Shut  thee  from  heaven  with  a  dome  more  vast. 
'Till  thou  at  length  art  free. 
Leaving  thine  outgrown  shell 
By  life's  unresting  sea." 

The  whole  conception  of  life  as  a  pilgrimage,  as  a 
migration  from  frontier  to  frontier,  has  occupied  the 
greatest,  as  well  as  the  simplest  minds  of  all  ages.  Says 
Sir  Oliver  Lodge :  "I  am  as  convinced  of  continued 
existence  on  the  other  side  of  death  as  I  am  of  existence 
here,"  and  he  further  says:  "I  believe  that  the  call  of 
Christ  Himself  will  be  attended  to  by  a  large  part  of  hu- 
manity in  the  near  future,  as  never  yet  it  has  been  heard 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  43 

or  attended  to  on  earth."  We  heartily  agree  with  this, 
and  we  further  believe  that  the  present  world-dissatisfac- 
tion with  things  as  they  are  is  to  spell  out  a  finer  and 
better  world  here  and  a  more  evident  and  certain  world 
hereafter.  We  are  dissatisfied  and  we  admit  it.  We 
are  strangers  and  pilgrims  on  the  earth  and  we  know  it. 
We  desire  a  better  country,  and  we  believe  we  shall  have 
it. 

^1  ^  ^v 

QUIETNESS  AND  CONFIDENCE 

IN  the  words  of  the  ancient  Prophet,  we  have  an  ad- 
monition that  every  one  of  us  must  heed  at  this  time 
of  a  great  world-crisis :  "In  quietness  and  in  confidence 
shall  be  your  strength." 

Somehow  or  other  we  seem  to  have  the  notion  that  in 
noise  and  excitement  reside  the  strength  of  the  nation. 
We  charged  the  French  with  being  mercurial,  and  they 
seemed  to  be  all  this  before  the  war,  but  there  is  probably 
not  a  stabler  or  more  compact  nation  in  the  world  today 
than  France.  It  has  been  sobered  by  a  great  crisis.  H. 
G.  Wells,  if  he  is  to  be  regarded  as  an  interpreter  of 
English  thought  and  life,  in  his  fascinating  book,  "Mr. 
Britling  Sees  It  Through,"  maintains  that  England  has 
been  aroused  from  her  stupor,  lethargy  and  arrogance 
and  made  to  see  as  never  before,  the  foolishness  of  con- 
ceit and  self-pride.  From  a  position  of  indifference  to 
the  things  of  religion,  as  Mr.  Wells  sees  it,  she  has  come 
along  the  way,  until  today,  through  sacrifices  on  the 
field  of  battle  she  is  crying  out,  even  in  her  anguish 
and  pain, — "Our  sons  have  shown  us  God." 

America  has  much  of  which  to  boast.    Her  develop- 


44 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

ment  is  stranger  and  more  fascinating  than  an  Arabian 
Night's  Tale.  Behind  all  her  show  of  commercialism  and 
prosperity,  we  believe  she  has  a  soul,  but  she  has  now 
reached  the  time  in  the  great  world-crisis  when  this 
soul  with  all  its  stored  up  strength  and  power  must  be 
made  evident. 

The  kind  of  quietness  the  Prophet  calls  for,  is  not  the 
quietness  of  self-ease  or  self-assurance.  It  is  the  quiet- 
ness that  is  born  of  a  reasonable  confidence  in  the  things 
of  character,  and  of  unfailing  belief  in  the  supervising 
and  directing  power  of  the  Almighty.  It  is  safe  to  say 
there  can  be  no  confidence  without  quietness.  Noise  and 
bluster  do  not  produce  confidence,  in  either  the  indi- 
vidual or  the  nation.  Quietness  is  conducive  to  sanity 
and  is  one  of  the  outstanding  marks  of  world  statesman- 
ship. Quietness  will  not  prompt  us  to  hastily  draw  the 
sword  or  shoulder  the  musket.  A  cheap,  superficial 
statesmanship  will  always  disclose  itself  in  bluster  and 
banter;  a  profound  and  efficient  statesmanship  will  dis- 
close itself  in  quietness  and  confidence.  A  nation  with 
a  "chip  on  its  shoulder"  is  a  nation  that  lacks  these  char- 
acteristics. 

The  people  of  this  land  today,  need  to  be  seriously  and 
solemnly  admonished  concerning  these  two  vital  things: 
they  must  exercise  reasonable  quietness  in  the  face  of 
the  world-storm,  else  the  Ship  of  State  in  which  they 
sail  may  experience  a  serious  situation ;  and,  again,  they 
must  disclose  such  a  confidence,  both  in  their  fellows 
and  in  the  God  who  directs  all  things,  that  there  shall 
result  a  greater  national  solidarity,  less  of  undue  self- 
pride  and  vain  shouting  about  the  things  of  prosperity, 
and  a  profounder  respect  for  the  things  of  character. 

One  man  of  character,  possessed  of  quietness  and  con- 
fidence, is  worth  more  to  the  State  in  the  time  of  its 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  45 

need  than  ten  thousand  noisy,  blustering,  inefficient  citi- 
zens. We  submit  that  neither  quietness  nor  confidence 
can  come  to  a  people  who  lack  the  God-consciousness. 
Nations  that  believe  solely  in  the  power  of  the  sword 
must  hear  again  the  ancient,  divine  word : — "They  that 
take  the  sword  shall  perish  with  the  sword."  This  na- 
tion is  called  to  its  knees  in  prayer.  To  live  as  con- 
scious only  of  human  power  and  human  strength  at 
such  a  time  as  this,  is  to  be  disloyal  to  the  great  things 
for  which  this  nation  stands,  and  to  violate  the  traditions 
of  its  fathers. 

K    n    Hi, 


DILIGENT  IN  BUSINESS 

*  *  O  EEST  thou  a  man  diligent  in  business ;  he  shall 
O  stand  before  kings."  It  hardly  seems  possible  that 
these  words  are  to  be  found  in  the  Bible,  and  yet  they 
are.  When  one  stops  to  reflect,  it  is  amazing  to  note  how 
many  of  the  common  conceptions  of  life  that  we  hold 
today,  are  rooted  in  the  world's  greatest  book.  Every 
now  and  again  someone  speaks  of  the  impracticableness 
of  the  Bible,  its  lack  of  modernness,  its  incapacity  when 
it  comes  to  the  things  of  common  everyday  life.  The 
Bible,  as  a  book,  is  as  valuable  in  a  twentieth  century 
home  or  temple  of  industry  as  it  is  in  the  Christian 
Church.    It  is  vital  with  life. 

The  passage  quoted  above  is  suggestive  of  the  place 
of  distinction  and  honor  that  is  occupied  by  the  man 
who  is  diligent  in  business.  The  standard  of  excellence 
stated  here,  be  it  noted,  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  fact 
that  a  man  is  successful  in  business,  that  he  has  made 


46  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

money;  the  one  thing  is,  that  he  is  dihgent;  therefore 
shall  he  "stand  before  kings." 

There  are  thousands  of  men  who  meet  this  condition, 
men  whose  names  are  not  chronicled  in  headlines  of 
newspapers  or  in  "Who's  Who."  The  engineer  in  the 
cab  with  his  hand  on  the  throttle,  directing  the  move- 
ments of  the  train  at  fifty  miles  an  hour,  if  he  be  dili- 
gent in  the  discharge  of  his  duties,  is  in  many  respects 
more  important  and  is  charged  with  far  greater  respon- 
sibilities than  the  general  manager  of  the  road,  seated  at 
his  desk,  handling  the  intricate  problems  of  transporta- 
tion. Both  are  necessary,  but  we  submit  that  the  place 
of  responsibility  is  in  the  engine  cab. 

The  fact  that  a  man  is  "absorbed  in  business"  is  no 
reason  for  condemning  him,  provided  he  is  absorbed  in 
the  right  way.  Some  men  who  were  far  from  diligent, 
have  stood  before  kings,  but  sooner  or  later  the  world 
discovers  their  weaknesses  and  condemns  their  counter- 
feit characters. 

Religion  is  one  of  the  great,  vital  forces  that  makes  a 
man  diligent  in  business.  Today,  deeper  inquiry  is  being 
made  in  the  business  world,  concerning  the  character  of 
its  applicants  for  position.  Freshness,  spontaneity, 
cleverness,  mental  alertness,  all  these,  are  indispensable, 
but  greater  than  all,  is  the  thing  we  call  character,  and 
the  man  who  is  really  diligent,  is  the  man  who  first,  last 
and  always  stands  for  the  high  ideals  of  character.  Take 
religion  out  of  business  and  a  panic  ensues.  Take  busi- 
ness out  of  religion  and  it  becomes  chaotic  and  inefficient. 
That  the  "Master-Workman"  who  told  the  story  of  the 
workers  in  the  vineyard,  respected  the  fidelity  and  de- 
votion of  the  worker  in  any  sphere  of  human  service,  is 
perfectly  evident.  We  believe  that  every  church  that  is 
truly   representing  Him  is   immediately   related   to   the 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  47 

concerns  of  business,  and  we  further  believe  that  where 
it  is  a  center  of  inspiration  and  power,  it  is  a  distinct 
contributor  to  efficiency  and  dihgence  in  the  commercial 
world. 

THE  OLD  LAW  AND  THE  NEW 

IT  is  a  far  reach  from  the  stern  law  of  the  ancient 
Hebrews  as  given  by  Moses  to  the  new  law  as  given 
and  practiced  by  Jesus  Christ.  All  too  frequently  we  are 
told  that  religion  is  so  far  removed  from  the  common 
things  of  life  that  it  does  not  intimately  affect  them.  The 
critic  declares  that  religion  as  a  system  is  impractical  and 
that  it  does  not  deal  with  life's  large  and  important  ques- 
tions. No  one  who  is  familiar  with  the  New  Testament 
or  the  teachings  of  Christ  will  for  a  moment  maintain 
this.  He  sought  to  lay  down  rules  for  human  conduct 
that  affect  all  forms  and  conditions  of  life  and  in  no 
place  was  He  more  specific  than  in  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount :  "It  hath  been  said :  an  eye  for  an  eye  and  a 
tooth  for  a  tooth ;  but  I  say  unto  you — " 

During  the  past  critical  years  a  great  controversy  has 
arisen  over  the  attitude  of  Jesus  towards  the  things  of 
war,  and  the  world  has  been  divided  into  two  opposing 
camps.  The  one  maintained  that  in  the  teaching  set  forth 
in  the  above  text  he  inveighs  against  all  forms  of  war 
both  defensive  and  offensive.  The  other  has,  we  believe, 
with  larger  wisdom  maintained  that  the  whole  attitude 
and  teaching  of  Christ  recognizes  the  righteousness  of 
upholding  individual  and  national  honor  and  integrity, 
even  with  force.  We  have  come  to  believe  that  there  is  a 
kind  of  pacifism  wholly  inconsistent  with  His  teachings 


48  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

and  that  witnesses  to  disregard  of  the  very  fundamental 
things  of  Hfe  and  character. 

Tolstoy  in  his  book,  "My  Religion,"  takes  this  text  as 
the  basis  of  his  whole  argument  and  lifts  non-resistance 
into  a  place  of  supreme  distinction  and  excellence.  We 
do  not  believe  that  the  modern  world  can  follow  him  in 
his  reasoning.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  righteous  in- 
dignation and  again  there  is  such  a  thing  as  the  hon- 
orable and  vigorous  defense  of  one's  principles.  Such  an 
attitude  in  no  wise  contravenes  the  express  teachings 
of  Jesus.  But  the  war  is  over,  and  we  are  again  seeking 
to  bring  to  bear  upon  all  our  human  problems  this  divine 
word,  and  we  cannot  but  think  that  it  must  have  vital  ap- 
plication to  those  stirring  questions  that  to-day  agitate 
the  whole  world. 

How  are  we  to  deal  with  those  who  differ  from  us, 
whether  at  home  or  abroad,  and  how  are  we  to  solve 
our  complex  problems  and  differences?  Surely  not  by 
violent  and  bitter  controversy ;  surely  not  by  crimination 
and  recrimination ;  and  certainly  not  by  acts  of  violence. 
The  German  junker  and  his  ilk  despised  the  teachings 
of  the  mild  and  gentle  Nazarene,  but  thoughtful  men 
are  coming  to  realize  to-day  that  these  teachings,  practi- 
cally applied,  constitute  the  main  solvent  of  our  riddles. 
We  may  not  and  we  dare  not  continue  to  go  on  in  life's 
course  exercising  a  malevolent  or  ungenerous  spirit  to- 
wards those  who  have  hitherto  been  our  enemies. 

Whether  we  like  it  or  not,  the  method  of  Jesus  is 
the  only  one  that  will  bring  us  back  again  to  the  habits 
and  practices  of  normal  life.  We  shall  punish  where 
punishment  is  deserved,  but  we  shall  not  exact  an  eye 
for  an  eye,  or  a  tooth  for  a  tooth.  We  shall  resist  evil 
and  we  hope  curb  and  cure  it  by  a  policy  consistent  with 
our  religious  faith.     Hard  as  it  is  for  us  to  understand 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  49 

that  "God  hath  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men 
to  dwell  on  the  face  of  the  whole  earth,"  and  however 
we  may  differ  in  racial  customs  and  practices,  we  must 
come  to  realize  that  too  exacting  penalties  and  too 
stern  judgments  do  not  make  for  permanent  peace  or 
order. 

No  man  ever  hated  sin  as  Jesus  Christ  did,  and  yet 
He  accomplished  marvelous  changes  in  human  life  by 
overcoming  sin  through  love  of  the  sinner.  Whether  we 
deal  with  a  wayward  child,  a  rebellious  element  in  the 
community,  or  a  selfish  and  sinning  State,  we  need  to 
learn  the  new  law  which  transcends  the  old,  and  by  an 
attitude  of  consistent  practice  and  reasonable  Christian 
charity  maintain  peace  and  good-will  among  men. 

MOBILIZE 

THAT  the  Founder  of  Christianity  expected  and 
looked  for  the  intimate  fellowship  of  His  believers 
is  unquestioned  and  unchallenged.  "That  they  all  may 
be  one,"  He  said.  Of  course,  He  reckoned  with  the 
divergencies  in  human  nature,  even  as  He  reckoned  with 
the  varying  temperaments  of  His  disciples.  We  do  not 
believe  He  sought  for  precise  uniformity  of  religious 
practice,  but  He  did  emphasize  the  great  essential  of 
unity. 

We  have  fallen  upon  a  time  when  the  demand  for  this 
greater  fellowship  among  Christian  believers  is  impera- 
tive and  indispensable.  We  believe  that  the  mobilization 
of  the  world's  Christian  forces  is  one  of  the  tragic  de- 
mands of  the  hour.  For  our  own  part,  we  have  come  to 
believe  that  an  insular  church  is  an  insolent  church,  and 


50  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

that  some  form  of  federation  must  come,  before  the 
Church  shall  resume  its  place  of  leadership  in  the  new 
period  of  reconstruction.  The  whole  drift  or  tendency 
of  our  age  is  toward  mobilization  of  forces.  In  industry 
and  in  the  State  we  are  witnessing  this  mobilization  to- 
day, especially  here  in  America,  as  we  have  never  known 
it  before.  In  the  face  of  this  tendency  are  we,  the  con- 
servators of  religion,  the  accredited  representatives  of 
that  character-making  power,  without  which  there  can 
come  no  new  world-cosmos  out  of  the  present  world- 
chaos,  to  go  on  without  the  mobilization  of  our  forces, 
scattering  our  fire  and  wasting  our  energies,  while  the 
mighty  enemy  triumphs  over  the  minds  and  wills  of 
men? 

We  cannot  believe  it.  We  are  at  the  greatest  crisis 
the  Church  has  faced  in  its  whole  history.  The  very 
foundations  themselves  seem  to  be  upheaved,  and  the 
whole  fabric  is  endangered.  From  all  parts  of  the 
world  there  is  heard  the  yearning  cry  of  men  for  religion, 
the  religion  of  the  Man  of  Nazareth,  undiluted  by  any 
peculiar  brand  of  denominational  pride  or  conceit. 
Nothing  is  more  tragic  than  the  failure  of  the  great 
Christian  Church  of  every  name  to  seize  opportunities 
as  they  come,  and  by  concentrated  effort  to  utilize  them 
for  the  salvation  of  men.  The  world  today  is  literally 
staggering  and  bewildered  in  its  search  for  leadership 
and  a  sustaining  religious  conviction,  and  confronted 
with  this  condition,  we  dare  not  be  mere  purveyors  of 
denominational  wares  and  nostrums.  Let  there  be 
variety  in  form,  but  let  there  be  unfailing  unity  in  those 
fundamentals  that  underlie  and  render  valid  all  forms. 

Mobilize!  Mobilize! — this  is  the  clear,  clarion  call  of 
the  hour,  and  woe  betide  the  Church  if  it  fails  to  meet 
it!    The  churches  of  this  land  represent  in  a  very  real 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  51 

way  its  character-making  forces.  If  they  are  to  do  their 
work  with  any  measure  of  efficiency,  especially  during 
the  critical  days  that  lie  ahead,  they  must  be  so  intimately 
related  in  their  large  enterprise  that  there  shall  be  nei- 
ther friction  nor  competition  nor  anything  that  shall  give 
the  enemy  occasion  or  opportunity  for  a  successful  attack 
by  front  or  flank.  Let  us  have  done  with  cheap,  senti- 
mental expressions  of  unity  that  only  serve  to  mislead 
the  mind  of  the  people,  and,  with  a  true  spirit  of  devo- 
tion to  our  great  Captain,  effect  a  unity  that  is  both  prac- 
ticable and  Christian. 

There  are  clearly  defined  grounds  of  agreement  and 
there  is  a  common,  universally  recognized  basis  for  co- 
operation and  fellowship,  and  that  basis  at  present  is  the 
recognition  of  the  Saviourhood  of  Jesus  Christ  and  the 
world's  appalling  need  of  Him.  For  the  sake  of  homes 
and  firesides,  for  the  sake  of  altars  and  pulpits,  for  the 
sake  of  a  distracted,  disillusioned  and  discouraged  world; 
yes,  for  the  sake  of  the  saving  of  the  multitude  wander- 
ing along  the  world's  broad  highways  without  God  and 
without  hope,  let  us  so  federate  the  divided  forces  of 
Christendom  that  the  lowly  Christ  shall  be  lifted  up  and 
become  regnant  in  the  hearts  of  men.  , 

AN  ADMIRAL'S  GREAT  MESSAGE 

"TJ  IGHTEOUSNESS  exalteth  a  nation,  sin  is  a  re- 
Jv  proach  to  any  people."  These  words  have  never 
had,  in  our  knowledge,  a  finer  interpreter  than  Sir  David 
Beatty,  the  great  admiral  of  the  English  fleet.  A  mes- 
sage delivered  by  him  as  a  commander  in  the  early 
days  of  the  war  has  an  import  and  a  significance  that 


52  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

may  well  challenge  the  serious  heed  of  America  at  this 
critical  time.    He  said: 

"Surely  Almighty  God  doesn't  intend  this  war  to 
be  just  a  hideous  fracas  or  a  blood-drunken  orgy. 
There  must  be  a  purpose  in  it.  In  what  direction? 
France  has  already  shown  us  the  way  and  has  risen, 
out  of  her  ruined  cities,  with  a  revival  of  religion 
that  is  wonderful.  England  still  remains  to  be  taken 
out  of  the  stupor  of  self-satisfaction  and  complac- 
ency in  which  her  flourishing  condition  has  steeped 
her.  Until  she  can  be  stirred  out  of  this  condition, 
until  a  religious  revival  takes  place,  just  so  long 
will  the  war  continue.  When  she  can  look  on  the 
future  with  humbler  eyes  and  a  prayer  on  her  lips, 
then  we  can  begin  to  count  the  days  towards  the 
end." 

If  this  momentous  utterance  had  application  to  the 
people  of  England  in  the  early  days  of  the  war,  shall 
we  not  believe  that  it  has  peculiar  application  to  the 
people  of  our  own  land  in  the  present  critical  hour?  It 
suggests  to  us  those  lines  of  Kipling  in  his  "Recessional": 

"If,  drunk  with  sight  of  power,  we  loose 
Wild  tongues  that  have  not  Thee  in  awe, 
Such  boastings  as  the  Gentiles  use 
Or  lesser  breeds  without  the  law, 
Lord  God  of  Hosts,  be  with  us  yet, 
Lest  we  forget,  lest  we  forget." 

Behind  all  true  and  abiding  greatness,  either  in  indi- 
vidual or  corporate  life  resides  righteousness,  a  religious 
conviction,  however  expressed,  that  stands  for  right- 
dealing  and  a  wholesome  recognition  of  the  life  and 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 53 

purposes  of  Almighty  God  in  the  affairs  of  men.    We 
assume  that  the  Admiral  was  not  advocating  the  revival 
of  an  emotional  and  insipid  kind  of  religious  fervor,  that 
expresses  itself  in  cheap  forms  of  cant  or  Pharisaic  self- 
righteousness.     We  are  heartily  sick  of  all  this,  and  it 
appeals  neither  to  our  imagination  or  our  judgment.  Nor 
again,  was  he  seeking  to  accentuate  any  peculiar  brand 
of  righteousness,  however  ancient  its  traditions  or  justi- 
fied its  usages.     He  was  demanding  as  the  very  prime 
requisite  of  efficiency,  a  revival  of  sound,  sane,  practical 
religion  in  the  life  of  the  people.    There  is  much  danger 
that  in   our  very  proper  enthusiasm   for  the   boys  in 
khaki,  we  shall  forget  that  behind  the  man  behind  the 
gun  must  reside  strength  of  character,  and  that  behind 
character  must  stand,  as  the  fixed  and  unchanging  main- 
spring of  conduct,  reverence  for  and  obedience  to  the 
known  will  of  God,  and  a  love  for  men  that  discloses  it- 
self in  just  and  fair  dealing.    We  may  prate  as  we  will 
about  the  need  for  far-reaching  changes  or  reforms  in 
our  systems,  political,  economic  and  social,  but  the  testi- 
mony of  the  ages  bears  eloquent  evidence  to  the  force 
of  the  words  of  our  text:    "Righteousness  exalteth  a  na- 
tion, sin  is  a  reproach  to  any  people."     Cromwell's  in- 
vincible "Ironsides"  went  forth  from  their  knees,  to  de- 
feat an  arrogant  imperial  army.    We  have  too  long  rele- 
gated religion  to  a  place  of  unimportance;  we  have  too 
long  toyed  with  it  as  an  aesthetic  bauble;  yes,  we  have 
too  long  "tolerated"  it  as  a  social  agency;  let  us  begin 
to  deal  with  it  as  the  preserving  salt  in  our  individual 
and  corporate  life.    "When  she  can  look  on  the  future 
with  humbler  eyes,  and  a  prayer  on  her  lips,  then  we 
can  begin  to  count  the  days  towards  the  end."    Words 
worthy  of  a  commander,  bravely  spoken  and  divinely  in- 
spired. 


54  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 


"PRAYER  HAS  ENLIGHTENED  MY  WAY" 

GENERAL  FERDINAND  FOCH  is  regarded  as  the 
greatest  general  that  the  world  has  ever  known 
and  the  army  he  commanded  is  the  largest  any  single 
leader  ever  directed.  So  rapid  was  the  progress  of  this 
army  and  so  wonderful  the  method  by  which  he  handled 
it  that  the  world  was  a-tiptoe  with  curiosity  to  learn  the 
secret  of  his  genius. 

Great  men,  as  a  rule,  are  to  the  public  gaze  shrouded 
in  mystery,  and  the  notion  prevails  that  they  have  some 
utterly  secret  method  by  and  through  which  they  exercise 
their  amazing  power.  Not  so  with  Foch;  there  are  no 
secrets  about  him,  and  with  the  frankness  of  a  child  he 
uncovers  to  the  world  what  he  holds  to  be  the  source  of 
his  strength  and  the  inspiration  of  his  genius.  Here  is 
his  own  testimony :  "I  approach  the  end  of  my  life  with 
the  conscience  of  a  faithful  servant,  who  reposes  in  the 
peace  of  the  Lord.  Faith  in  life  eternal,  in  a  God  of 
goodness  and  compassion,  has  sustained  me  in  the  most 
trying  hours.  PRAYER  HAS  ENLIGHTENED  MY 
WAY."  It  is  reported  of  him,  that,  daily,  even  while  di- 
recting the  movements  of  vast  armies,  he  retired  into  the 
silences  for  his  devotions. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  the  outstanding  leaders 
in  the  field,  who  today  are  masters  of  great  armies  are 
without  exception,  by  their  own  confession,  men  of 
prayer,  Joffre,  Petain,  Haig,  Pershing,  Foch  and  Grand 
Admiral  Sir  David  Beatty  make  open  acknowledgment 
of  the  fact  that  prayer  and  the  consciousness  of  the 
presence  of  God  constitute  the  source  of  their  power 
and  genius,  and  to  these  they  attribute  whatever  success 
has  attended  them. 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  55 

It  was  said  of  the  Son  of  Man  that,  "as  He  prayed  the 
fashion  of  His  countenance  was  altered."  Sublime  and 
faultless  as  was  His  life,  He  experienced  the  renewing 
and  invigorating  power  which  comes  alone  from  prayer. 
How  all  this  blends  with  the  word  of  the  great  English 
poet: 

"More  things  are  wrought  by  prayer 
Than  this  world  dreams  of." 

There  are  no  systems  of  measurement  and  no  scales, 
however  delicately  constructed,  that  can  give  us  the  di- 
mensions or  the  proportions  of  that  subtle  power  we  call 
prayer,  and  yet,  today,  the  world's  greatest  marshal  de- 
clares "Prayer  has  enlightened  my  way." 

Who  would  venture  to  compute  the  weight  of  the  bur- 
dens imposed  upon  this  great  leader  in  the  dark  days  of 
last  spring  and  in  the  critical  days  of  midsummer?  We 
have  been  told  how  he  struggled  to  know  the  hour  and  the 
place  at  which  to  give  the  blow  that  would  mark  the  be- 
ginning of  the  decline  and  fall  of  autocratic  power.  If 
ever  the  evidences  of  righteous  leadership  have  been  wit- 
nessed in  the  affairs  of  men,  surely  they  have  been  dis- 
closed in  the  marvelous  happenings  of  the  past  three 
months. 

Men  have  sought  to  define  and  analyze  prayer,  they 
have  discussed  it,  they  have  been  awed  by  its  strange 
power,  they  have  at  times  repudiated  it  and  tried  to 
forget  it,  and  yet,  in  the  hour  of  supreme  need  they 
have  invoked  its  influence.  There  are  so  many  mighty 
forces  with  which  we  have  to  do  and  that  we  use  and 
harness  for  our  service  that  even  the  scientists  can- 
not explain,  that  it  were  well  for  us  at  such  a  time 
as  the  present  to  remember  that  prayer  is  the  greatest 
dynamic,  the  greatest  unused  power  of  which  the  world 


56  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

today  is  conscious.  It  is  our  conviction  that  we  are  to  be 
enlightened  on  the  new  way  that  shall  lead  the  world  on 
and  up  to  higher  and  better  things,  not  because  of  any 
material  greatness  we  possess,  but  because  we  have 
learned  again  the  meaning  of  that  great  word:  "Be 
still,  and  know  that  I  am  God." 


THE  CHURCH  AND  LABOR 

OVER  the  world  today  discussion  is  rife  as  to  the 
relation  the  Church,  as  an  institution,  should  bear 
to  the  large  interests  of  labor.  In  some  places  we  are 
told  that  labor,  as  organized,  not  only  regards  the  church 
as  unsympathetic  and  uninformed  as  to  its  needs,  but  that 
its  whole  attitude  for  a  generation  past  has  been  inimical 
to  the  interests  of  labor.  We  have  been  told  by  some 
writers  that  where  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  is  greeted 
with  applause  in  labor  meetings  the  name  of  His  Church 
is  met  with  sneers  of  derision.  We  think  this  an  over- 
statement of  the  case. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  becoming  increasingly  evident 
that  an  institution  that  is  supposed  to  stand  for  the  whole 
interests  of  man  should  disclose  some  intelligent  concern 
for  those  things  that  have  to  do  with  his  bodily  and 
physical  needs.  To  the  consciousness  of  the  average 
worker  the  church  seems  to  be  too  other-worldly;  it  ap- 
pears to  deal  too  much  in  promissory  notes,  the  payment 
of  which  is  guaranteed  in  some  far  off  time. 

In  the  main,  the  training  of  the  clergy  in  colleges  and 
seminaries  does  not  contemplate  any  large  or  practical 
knowledge  of  those  questions  that  have  to  do  with  in- 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 57 

dustrial  or  social  conditions.  We  submit  that  this  is  a 
serious  misfortune.  On  the  other  hand,  the  average 
minister  is  so  placed  that  he  is  not  brought  into  immediate 
contact  with  those  vital  questions  that  relate  to  social, 
industrial  and  political  questions.  Few  men  in  the  min- 
istry disclose  any  great  aptitude  in  these  matters.  Be- 
yond this  the  average  layman  does  not  regard  his  church 
as  an  enterprise  that  has  to  do  with  matters  of  this  kind. 
It  is  our  judgment  that  in  these  things  both  the  clergy 
and  the  church  need  education  and  intelligent  direction. 
We  believe  that  religion  contemplates  life  here  in  all  its 
aspects  as  well  as  life  hereafter. 

The  Church,  as  an  institution,  will  probably  never  de- 
termine wage  scales,  but  it  can  aflfect  mightily  the  prin- 
ciples that  govern  wage  scales,  and  further  than  this,  if 
its  effort  is  intelligently  directed  and  all  its  interests  co- 
ordinated, it  can  accomplish  immeasurable  good  in  im- 
proving living  conditions  and  raising  the  whole  standard 
of  life  to  higher  levels.  We  may  never  forget,  except 
to  our  hurt,  that  the  Master  of  the  Church  was  Himself 
an  artisan,  schooled  in  the  carpenter  shop  at  Nazareth. 

In  a  recent  conversation  with  one  of  the  most  intelli- 
gent and  consistent  leaders  of  labor  in  this  country,  he 
stated  definitely  that,  in  his  observation  in  one  of  our 
great  cities,  the  church  had  never  manifested  in  any 
direct  or  practical  way  either  its  interest  in  or  concern 
for  the  things  of  labor.  We  beHeve  it  is  not  enough 
that  we  shall  from  week  to  week  stand  for  the  practice 
of  the  Golden  Rule  or  emphasize  those  eternal  principles 
that  have  to  do  with  human  interests.  We  must  be  in- 
telligently and  sympathetically  related  to  the  actual  prob- 
lems and  by  all  the  influence  we  can  command,  seek  to 
effect  their  i^olution.  The  time  has  come  when  both  cap- 
ital and  labor  must  recognize  that  Christianity  and  the 


58  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

church  have  a  supremely  important  place  in  all  the  com- 
mon concerns  of  everyday  life. 

It  would  be  both  informing  and  inspiring  to  the  min- 
isters of  the  church  if  they  would  seek  to  relate  them- 
selves more  intimately  and  effectively  to  those  concerns 
that  have  to  do  with  economic  conditions.  There  are  too 
many  church  programs  that  merely  contemplate  church 
extension  here  and  abroad  along  old  and  traditional  lines. 
It  is  becoming  evident  that  we  need  less  of  church  exten- 
sion and  more  of  the  practical  teaching  and  application 
of  the  principles  of  the  church's  Master  to  world  con- 
ditions. 

All  this  has  its  application,  not  only  to  the  clergy,  but 
to  those  who  profess  to  be  followers  of  the  Master.  The 
opportunity  is  infinite  to  interpret  His  mind  to  all  forms 
of  our  social,  economic  and  political  institutions.  While 
there  may  be  a  great  difference  of  opinion  among  the 
churches  as  to  the  proper  methods  to  be  employed  to  get 
men  into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  there  should  be  un- 
animity of  opinion  as  to  the  best  method  of  getting  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  into  the  world  in  which  we  live. 

SUSPENDED  MORAL  CONVICTIONS 

SOMETIMES  a  single  paragraph  expresses  the  moral 
cowardice  or  the  moral  heroism  of  people,  and  fur- 
nishes an  index  to  their  character.  It  was  written  con- 
cerning certain  men,  with  reference  to  their  lack  of  ex- 
pressed religious  conviction,  that  "many  believed  on  Him ; 
but  because  of  the  Pharisees  they  did  not  confess  Him." 
And,  again,  as  an  excuse  for  this  moral  cowardice,  it  was 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  59 


said  that  "they  loved  the  praise  of  men  more  than  the 
praise  of  God." 

One  of  the  tragic  things  about  the  Hfe  of  the  world's 
Master  is  the  acknowledgment  by  men  of  His  supremely 
beautiful  teachings  and  His  altogether  blameless  life,  and 
yet  their  wilful  failure  to  accept  His  leadership.  A  Ro- 
man soldier  once  said  "Never  man  spake  like  this  man," 
and  this  we  believe  is  the  universal  verdict. 

A  distinguished  Englishman  has  declared  in  a  remark- 
able book,  that,  in  the  present  crisis,  it  is  the  spirit  of  the 
Corsican  against  the  spirit  of  the  Christ.  In  other  words, 
men  are  being  forced  to  accept  the  ideals  of  the  one  or 
the  other.  The  ideals  of  the  Corsican  stand  for  the 
things  of  passion  and  ambition  and  self-satisfaction ;  the 
ideals  of  the  Christ  stand  for  a  selfless  service,  the  recog- 
nition of  and  obedience  to  moral  law,  the  safeguarding  of 
the  sweet  and  wholesome  and  worth-while  things  of  life, 
and  the  unfailing  pursuit  of  high  spiritual  ideals. 

There  are  two  principal  motives  that  seem  to  operate 
in  restraining  men  from  making  a  definite  declaration  of 
allegiance  to  Christ — first,  fear  of  the  world's  criticism; 
second,  a  misconception  of  His  claims. 

It  is  almost  universally  true  that  the  desire  for  the 
praise  of  men  hinders,  if  it  does  not  wholly  restrain,  an 
open  acknowledgment  of  fealty  to  the  Master.  Even  in 
so  simple  a  matter  as  the  saying  of  one's  prayers  there 
seems  to  be  a  kind  of  moral  cowardice  disclosed.  So- 
called  strong  men  will  sometimes  yield  their  practice  of 
pronounced  religious  expression  in  the  presence  of  those 
who  differ  from  them.  They  have  no  fear  in  declaring 
their  allegiance  to  political  parties  or  social  enterprises, 
but  somehow  an  open  expression  of  religious  conviction 
seems  to  appall  them.  They  believe  on  Him,  but  because 
of  the  Pharisees,  they  do  not  confess  Him.    It  is  a  case 


60  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

of  what  someone  calls,  "suspended  moral  convictions." 
Frequently  it  takes  a  crisis  or  a  tragedy  in  one's  life  to 
break  down  and  overcome  this  apathy  or  cowardice. 
We  do  not  begin  to  realize  what  an  effect  environing 
conditions  have  upon  our  religious  faith  and  practice. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  any  form  of  religious  expression 
that  is  wholly  governed  by  environing  conditions  is  un- 
worthy, and  betrays  an  evidence  of  moral  cowardice. 

A  misconception  as  to  the  claims  of  Christ  is  a  further 
deterrent.  Somehow  or  other  the  notion  seems  to  obtain 
that  loyalty  to  Christian  ideals  implies  a  renunciation  of 
all  those  attractive  and  fascinating  things  that  make  for 
human  satisfaction  and  profit.  We  submit  that  this  is  not 
so.  There  is  nothing  that  is  wholesomely  worth  while 
in  this  world,  that  a  loyal  following  of  the  Master  pre- 
cludes or  denies. 

Christianity  calls  forth  the  heroic;  it  is  a  practice  or 
habit  of  life  that  defies  all  criticism  and  persists  in  the 
face  of  all  opposition.  It  is  the  open  profession  of  al- 
legiance to  the  world's  Master  Man  and  it  challenges  the 
best  that  is  in  us. 

A  LOOK  AHEAD 

STANDING  on  an  eminence  overlooking  the  battlefield 
of  Marengo,  Napoleon  saw  the  French  lines  broken 
by  the  terrific  impact  of  the  Austrian  forces.  Presently 
an  orderly  dashed  up  to  the  invincible  fighter  and  said: 
"Sire,  the  French  line  is  broken  and  is  in  full  retreat." 
Without  a  moment's  pause  the  master  of  strategy  an- 
swered: "Tell  the  commanders  to  re-form  the  line." 
Before  the  sun  had  set  on  that  eventful  day,  the  French 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  61 


line  had  been  re-formed  and  "had  plucked  victory  from 
the  spear  point  of  defeat."  After  the  great  war  the  call 
to  the  nations  of  the  world  today  is :    "Re-form  the  line." 

A  great  student  of  human  affairs  once  said  that  "many 
times  in  the  history  of  humankind  it  had  seemed  that  the 
people  were  ready  to  take  a  momentous  step  forward 
under  conditions  miraculously  prepared,  but  just  when 
everything  was  ready,  at  the  very  last  moment  they  had 
looked  back  for  one  farewell  glance,  and  then  never  ad- 
vanced." The  obvious  reasons  for  this  failure  to  go  for- 
ward were  undue  timidity  on  the  one  hand  and  con- 
scienceless leadership  on  the  other. 

The  French  Revolution  was  marked  by  brutal  and  sel- 
fish leadership  in  its  early  stages  (and  in  this  respect 
the  Russian  Revolution  parallels  it),  but  when  once  the 
vision  of  the  people  was  clarified  and  the  self-seeking 
leaders  were  dispossessed  there  emerged  a  great  and 
stable  nation  whose  watchwords  were:  "Liberty,  Equal- 
ity, Fraternity." 

It  is  hard  for  men  to  break  with  traditions  or  with 
their  personal  conceits,  and  it  is  still  harder  for  them  to 
abandon  their  selfish  ambitions  and  satisfactions.  To- 
day, however,  new  conceptions  and  new  forces  that  have 
to  do  with  human  affairs  have  come  into  being,  and  a 
conservatism  that  seeks  to  cling  to  the  old  order  is  losing 
its  grip.  There  are,  doubtless,  many  who  are  fearful  of 
what  is  to  be  done  on  the  morrow,  and  they  are  evidently 
startled  by  the  statement  that  was  recently  made — 
"America  can  never  be  the  same  as  it  was  before  the 
war."  We  are  clear  that  this  statement  is  true,  but  we 
look  to  see  a  greater  and  better  America  than  we  have 
hitherto  known. 

Underlying  the  world's  restlessness  (and  this  is  its 
universal  symptom  today),  there  is  a  yearning  for  better 


62  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

conditions  in  all  the  departments  and  concerns  of  human 
life.  Every  one  of  us  must  front  this  new  period  with  a 
determination  to  make  our  contribution,  however  it  may 
violate  our  cherished  notions,  to  the  lifting  up  and  en- 
riching of  all  kinds  and  conditions  of  men.  It  has  been 
reserved  for  our  time  to  emphasize  what  has  been  called 
the  "social  implications  of  the  Gospel."  We  had  thought 
that  religion  was  unrelated  to  the  wage  scale,  better 
housing  conditions,  clean  politics  and  all  that  has  to  do 
with  the  physical  well-being  of  our  fellows.  Now  we  are 
to  understand  more  clearly  what  Jesus  meant  when  He 
said :    "I  have  made  a  man  every  whit  whole." 

It  has  been  said  that  "the  nineteenth  century  made  the 
world  a  neighborhood,  the  twentieth  must  make  it  a 
brotherhood."  We  are  all,  young  and  old  alike,  compelled 
at  the  beginning  of  the  New  Year  to  make  certain  reso- 
lutions concerning  our  relations  to  our  fellows,  and  it 
seems  to  us  that  the  exigencies  of  the  present  hour  de- 
mand that  we  shall  solemnly  resolve  at  this  time  to  do 
everything  in  our  power,  to  hasten  to  set  forward  a  finer 
expression  and  realization  of  the  saner  brotherhood  of 
mankind.  Let  us  be  perfectly  clear  that  this  resolution 
must  carry  with  it  a  determination  to  make  sacrifices, 
however  exacting  they  may  be,  that  all  the  world  may 
enjoy  the  "more  abundant  life"  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
came  to  bring. 

SEEING  LIFE  RIGHT 

**^T^  HE  place  whereon  thou  standest  is  holy  ground." 
X    In  a  notable  essay  on  personality,  a  great  writer 
contends  that,  before  we  are  capable  of  consciously  re- 
alizing any  attainment,  we  must  develop  a  capacity  for  it ; 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  63 

muddy  waters  cannot  reflect  the  stars.  He  says  "All  the 
pride  and  pleasure  of  the  world  mirrored  in  the  dull  con- 
sciousness of  a  fool  is  poor  indeed  compared  with  the 
imagination  of  Cervantes  writing  his  Don  Quixote  in  a 
miserable  prison." 

Before  we  can  come  to  even  a  small  measure  of  attain- 
ment, intellectual  or  spiritual,  we  must  be  made  receptive 
to  it.  In  other  words,  we  must  will  to  be.  Mirabeau  once 
said:  "Nothing  is  impossible  to  the  man  who  can  will." 
We  may  not  all  come  to  a  place  of  national,  local  or  even 
community  leadership,  but  we  may,  through  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  sacredness  of  life,  make  it  something  more 
than  a  monotonous,  soulless,  humdrum  sort  of  an  exist- 
ence. Most  of  us  seem  to  think  that  efficiency  in  life  con- 
sists in  having  something.  Again  and  again  someone  will 
say:  "If  I  could  only  have  wealth,  or  power,  or  influence, 
I  would  be  able  to  do  my  large  part  in  the  world." 

The  history  of  mankind  does  not  seem  to  indicate  that 
those  who  have  been  the  possessors  of  things,  or  even  of 
wealth,  have  been  the  world's  greatest  benefactors.  In- 
deed, it  would  almost  seem  that  poverty  itself,  coupled 
with  a  right  conception  of  life,  constituted  the  very  es- 
sentials of  genius.  It  is  not  the  man  or  woman  who 
amasses  a  fortune,  however  honestly,  and  at  death  leaves 
it  in  the  form  of  bequests,  who  contributes  most  largely 
to  the  weal  and  happiness  of  the  world.  It  is  those  who 
live  day  by  day  with  a  high  consciousness  of  stewardship 
and  a  large  sense  of  responsibility  for  playing  the  game 
of  life  fairly,  honestly,  and  with  a  due  sense  of  obligation 
to  those  about  them,  that  really  contribute  to  the  happi- 
ness of  their  fellows  and  become  benefactors  of  their 
kind. 

Jacob  Riis  died  at  the  age  of  65.  He  was  poor,  as  men 
reckon  wealth,  but  Roosevelt  once  said  of  him  that  he  was 


64  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

"one  of  the  most  useful  citizens  of  New  York  city." 
Why?  Because  he  sought  to  learn  "how  the  other  half 
lives,"  and  having  learned  it,  to  do  his  heroic  part  in  bet- 
tering conditions.  To  him,  the  place  where  he  stood  was 
holy  ground,  and  he  consecrated  his  talents  and  his  zeal 
to  the  bettering  of  human  conditions  in  the  slums  of  a 
great  city. 

A  negro  slave  boy  in  the  South  had  a  like  vision  of  the 
sacredness  of  life,  as  well  as  of  its  vast  opportunities,  and 
he  resolved  to  dedicate  all  that  he  was  and  had  to  the 
bettering  of  the  conditions  of  his  race.  Booker  T.  Wash- 
ington did  more  to  emancipate  the  minds  of  his  people 
and  to  render  them  efficient  citizens  of  the  nation  than 
any  other  single  man  in  our  recent  history. 

During  these  past  years,  the  value  of  things  has  de- 
preciated, while  the  value  of  character  and  of  real  worth 
has  grown  immeasurably  in  the  estimation  of  men.  Car- 
dinal Mercier  was  hardly  known  outside  of  little  Belgium 
at  least  to  the  American  people,  before  the  war.  He  had 
neither  the  wealth  nor  the  weapons  with  which  to  resist 
the  invader,  but  he  had  that  which  was  infinitely  greater. 
Fearlessly  and  with  a  high  consciousness  of  the  sacred- 
ness of  his  office,  he  withstood  the  tyrant's  autocratic 
sway,  and  he  stands  today  as  one  of  the  really  great  and 
commanding  figures  of  the  war  period. 

As  we  front  the  New  Year,  it  is  a  good  time  to  read- 
just our  notions  concerning  life.  We  do  not  have  to  be 
preachers  or  philanthropists  to  serve  either  God  or  hu- 
manity. There  is  not  one  of  us  so  poor  but  has  some 
quality,  some  gift,  some  talent  that,  recognized  and  used 
and  practically  adapted  to  the  world's  needs,  can  serve 
to  better  human  conditions,  making  this  old  world,  with 
all  its  selfishness  and  greed,  a  fitter  place  in  which  to  live. 

A  pretty  good  resolution  at  this  time  for  all  of  us  would 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 65 

be,  to  look  upon  life  as  a  sacred  trust,  to  think  of  it  as  an 
opportunity,  to  regard  service  to  others  not  as  an  obliga- 
tion, but  rather  as  a  privilege,  to  think  of  such  gifts  and 
qualities  as  we  have  as  investments  which  God  Almighty 
has  made  in  us,  that  are  to  be  used  in  the  interests  of 
our  fellows.  The  commonest  task  and  the  lowliest  occu- 
pation take  on  a  divine  splendor  when  they  are  regarded 
as  means  of  service  for  others.  We  have  always  liked 
that  word : 

"I  shall  pass  through  this  world  but  once.  Any  kind 
word  that  I  may  say  or  any  kind  deed  that  I  may  do,  let 
me  say  and  do  it  now,  for  I  shall  not  pass  this  way  again." 

THE  OLD-TIME  RELIGION 

A  PROMINENT  railroad  man  said  to  us  a  short  time 
ago:  "There  is  a  widespread  revival  of  interest 
in  matters  religious,  and  on  every  hand  today  I  hear  men 
talking  of  things  that  we  seem  to  have  forgotten  or  have 
long  neglected.  I  believe  the  church  is  to  come  into  its 
own  and  that  the  world  is  to  evince  a  larger  interest  in 
religion  than  it  has  ever  shown  before."  This  statement 
is  by  no  means  an  isolated  one,  but  is  a  common  ex- 
pression that  one  hears  daily  and  in  the  most  unexpected 
places. 

If  it  discloses  an  awakened  interest  in  religion,  it  is 
very  proper  to  ask,  what  kind  of  religion  does  it  demand? 
Some  one  says,  "it  is  not  a  religion  of  creeds  or  formu- 
laries ;"  another  says,  "it  is  not  a  religion  that  manifests 
itself  once  a  week  in  churches ;"  and  still  another  main- 
tains that  "it  is  not  a  religion  circumscribed  or  limited  or, 
in  other  words,  denominational  in  its  character."   There 


66 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

may  be  partial  truth  in  all  these  statements,  but  we  may 
never  forget  that  religion,  like  all  other  schemes  or  plans 
that  have  to  do  with  life,  must  have  definite  and  pre- 
scribed methods  or  forms  and  that  it  must  operate 
through  well  organized  and  well  conceived  agencies.  In 
other  words,  it  is  inconceivable  that  religion  is  to  play  its 
large  part  in  the  world's  reconstruction,  unless  it  is  well 
organized,  clearly  expressed  and  splendidly  administered. 

Religion,  to  be  operative,  must  be  defined,  and,  further 
than  this,  it  must  have  agencies  for  its  expression  and 
propagation.  It  may  be  said  in  all  humility  that  the 
church,  in  some  respects,  has  signally  failed,  and,  again, 
that  no  church  is  the  depository  of  the  sum  total  of 
truth ;  but,  when  this  has  been  said,  let  us  not  forget  that 
churches  express  temperamental  qualities  and  differences, 
and  to  construct  a  plan  or  organization  that  all  men  are 
compelled  to  recognize,  and  without  which  they  cannot 
be  religious  or  worship  in  a  corporate  way,  means  to 
deny  the  universal  temperamental  differences  that  very 
properly  segregate  us  into  groups  and  classes. 

No  matter  what  we  may  think  about  these  matters, 
one  thing  is  clearly  evident,  religion,  which  is  the  ex- 
pression of  the  "life  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man,"  is  the 
most  conspicuous  need  of  the  present  hour.  Sabatier 
was  unquestionably  right  when  he  said,  "Man  is  in- 
curably religious,"  and  the  present  and  insistent  demand 
for  a  finer  expression  of  religious  conviction  is  becoming 
more  and  more  evident. 

Most  of  us  received  our  earliest  and,  perhaps  noblest 
conceptions  of  religion  at  our  mother's  knee.  God  evi- 
dently ordained  womankind  to  be  the  primary  interpreter 
of  his  truths  to  his  children.  No  matter  how  far  we 
may  go  afield,  in  our  better  hours  we  all  cherish  the  re- 
ligion of  our  childhood.    The  old-fashioned  religion  that 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  67 

mother  used  to  give  us  was  a  religion  that  had  to  do  with 
the  things  of  conduct  and  character.  It  may  have  been 
very  simple  in  form,  but,  after  all,  it  was  based  upon 
the  great  essentials,  and  it  maintained  that  the  profession 
of  the  lips  and  the  habit  of  life  must  be  consistent  and 
balanced. 

We  are  going  to  have,  perhaps,  many  varieties  of  ex- 
pression of  religion  in  the  new  age  ahead,  but  it  is  our 
unfailing  conviction  that  the  religion  that  will  have  the 
most  permanent  value  in  the  reconstruction  of  the  state 
and  our  social  institutions  will  be  the  religion  that  harks 
back  to  those  basic  and  fundamental  truths  that  are 
vitally  and  essentially  related  to  the  things  of  habit  and 
conduct. 

Jesus  Christ  is  and  will  remain  the  world's  supreme 
interpreter  of  religion,  and  all  roads  of  thought  today 
lead  up  to  Him  who  declared  Himself  to  be  "the  Way, 
the  Truth  and  the  Life." 

THE  BOOK  IN  THE  FURNACE 

IT  IS  safe  to  say  that  no  book  in  the  world  has  been 
put  to  such  utterly  severe  and  exacting  tests  as  the 
Bible.  It  has  borne  the  white  light  of  criticism  for  gen- 
erations. It  has  been  subjected  to  the  most  careful  an- 
alysis by  the  world's  greatest  scholars,  and  every  known 
method  of  so-called  textual  criticism  has  been  applied 
to  it.  "Nevertheless  the  foundation  of  God  standeth 
sure." 

The  controversy  as  to  the  authenticity  of  the  works  of 
Shakespeare  and  the  effort  to  trace  their  authorship  to 
Bacon  has  been  long  and  persistent.    We  recall  that  one 


68  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

of  the  greatest  living  Shakespeare  scholars  once  told  us 
that,  in  this  profoundly  great  work,  there  were  approxi- 
mately seven  outstanding,  competent  Shakespeare  critics 
in  this  country.  Against  this,  we  may  safely  say  that 
there  are  literally  thousands  of  thoroughly  competent, 
deeply  learned,  analytical  critics  of  the  Bible  in  this 
country,  and  thousands  upon  thousands  more  through- 
out the  world. 

Not  only  is  this  true  of  our  day  and  generation,  but  it 
is  true  of  every  age  and  period.  So  assured  were  those 
who  attacked  the  validity  and  authority  of  the  Bible  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  that  they  confidently  declared 
that  the  religion  of  the  Bible  would  not  last  out  half  a 
century.  In  one  form  or  another,  this  statement  has  been 
repeatedly  made,  and  yet  even  the  severest  critics  must 
admit  that  the  Bible  as  a  book  occupies  a  larger  place  in 
the  world's  thought  today  than  it  has  ever  occupied  be- 
fore. 

We  recall  that,  when  the  so-called  modernists,  whose 
work  of  criticism  began  in  the  latter  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  were  using  their  scalpels  to  dissect  this 
Book,  widespread  fear  was  expressed  that  its  truths  were 
to  be  undermined  and  its  power  as  an  ethical  and  spirit- 
ual guide  utterly  destroyed.  With  assurance  we  can  say 
that,  on  the  contrary,  this  very  criticism  has  resulted  in 
the  entrenching  of  the  Book  in  the  affections  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  in  large  part  it  has  cleared  the  way  for  a  better 
comprehension  of  its  mighty  truths,  and  made  more  evi- 
dent its  unfailing  stability  and  strength.  The  literature  of 
this  Book  has  impregnated  the  literature  of  the  world.  A 
group  of  English  scholars  discussing  this  matter  one  day, 
made  the  statement  that,  were  the  Bible  lost  in  its  present 
integrity,  it  could  be  almost  completely  recovered  from  a 
search  through  the  world's   general   literature.     There 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 69 

might  be  some  omissions,  but  the  fundamental  things 
would  be  preserved. 

Few  of  us  ever  stop  to  reflect  upon  the  fact  that  the 
gathering  together  of  these  66  books  of  the  Bible  and  the 
careful  examination  of  the  original  Hebrew  and  Greek 
text  in  which  the  books  have  come  down  to  us,  was  the 
work,  not  of  one  group  in  one  isolated  period,  but  of 
many  groups  in  many  periods,  and  that  the  work  of  re- 
search and  examination  was  more  exacting  and  precise 
than  that  applied  to  any  other  book  of  which  we  have 
knowledge.  It  has  been  examined  word  by  word,  micro- 
scopically. Its  literature  and  its  subject  matter  have  been 
compared  with  every  known  religious  literature.  Its  pro- 
foundest  and  supremest  teacher,  Jesus  Christ,  has  been 
studied  as  no  other  teacher  or  exponent  of  truth  that  the 
world  has  produced.  He  has  been  compared  with  other 
great  religious  leaders,  and  every  such  study  of  Him  has 
left  Him  in  isolated  grandeur. 

One  of  the  interesting  things  about  this  Book  has  been 
its  influence,  not  only  upon  the  habits,  but  upon  the 
thought  life  of  the  world's  great  leaders.  It  has  literally 
saturated  them  and  given  to  their  utterances  and  writings 
a  quality  that  no  other  book  imparts.  To  the  peerless 
Webster  and  to  the  great  commoner,  John  Bright,  as  well 
as  other  outstanding  statesmen  in  modern  history,  the 
Bible  has  been  a  fountain  and  source  of  inspiration.  Of 
the  great  Rufus  Choate,  the  peerless  Nestor  of  the  bar, 
it  was  said,  "this  Book,  so  early  absorbed  and  never  for- 
gotten, saturated  his  mind  and  spirit  more  than  any  other, 
more  than  all  other  books  combined.  It  was  at  his 
tongue's  end,  at  his  fingers'  ends — always  close  at  hand 
until  those  last  languid  hours  at  Halifax,  when  it  solaced 
his  dying  meditations.  You  can  hardly  find  speech,  argu- 
ment, or  lecture  of  his,  from  first  to  last,  that  is  not 


70  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

sprinkled  and  studded  with  biblical  ideas  and  pictures, 
and  biblical  words  and  phrases." 

The  Bible  makes  no  apology  for  its  place  of  permanent 
distinction,  and  whether  read  with  the  eye  of  the  untu- 
tored or  the  eye  of  the  scholar,  it  stands  the  test,  and  out 
of  the  furnace  of  controversy,  it  emerges  triumphant. 

8?      •?      8? 

"HECKLING  THE  CHURCH" 

NOTHING  has  been  more  popular  during  the  past 
two  years  than  for  writers,  clerical  and  lay,  to  sub- 
mit articles  or  to  make  speeches  designed  to  show  the 
utter  insufficiency,  fallacy,  and  insanity  of  many  of  the 
Church's  methods  and  more  particularly  the  gross  in- 
competency and  narrowness  of  the  Church's  leaders.  In 
the  main,  these  writers  and  speakers  are  the  ordained 
servants  of  the  Church.  Perhaps  they  ought  to  know 
more  about  the  actual  conditions  than  any  others,  and 
yet,  it  is  passing  strange  that  they  "foul  their  own  nest" 
by  sweeping  statements  and  large  generalizations  in 
which  they  condemn  the  whole  system  of  which  they  are 
a  part. 

Perhaps  it  is  good  to  witness  this  form  of  self-ex- 
amination and  seeming  humility.  All  too  frequently  the 
clergy  as  a  class  are  charged  with  being  arrogant,  con- 
ceited, and  dogmatic.  That  there  is  need  for  improving 
conditions  in  the  Church  goes  without  saying.  That  we 
are  over-churched  in  some  communities  and  under- 
churched  in  others  is  also  true.  Denominational  rival- 
ries and  competitions  have  become  a  nuisance  and  a  dis- 
grace, and  in  this  there  is  ground  for  reasonable  criticism. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  believe  it  may  be  stated  that 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  71 

the  clergy  of  this  and  other  lands  have  averaged  up  fairly 
well  with  other  bodies  and  professions  in  meeting  the  de- 
mands of  the  war  period.  The  thousands  of  Catholic 
priests  in  France  who  responded  to  the  call  to  the  colors 
and  went  into  the  trenches  to  give  their  lives  for  the  Re- 
public are  a  refutation  of  the  statement  that  the  Church 
has  no  concern  for  the  things  of  the  State.  The  ready 
response  of  the  clergy  and  Christian  men  and  women  gen- 
erally in  all  countries  to  the  call  for  selfless  service  in 
Red  Cross,  Y.M.C.A.,  Knights  of  Columbus,  Salvation 
Army,  and  other  noble  agencies  is  a  further  denial  of 
the  frequently  made  charge  that  the  Church  is  too  other- 
worldly. It  is  a  singular  but  conspicuous  fact  that  when- 
ever anything  breaks  down  in  our  social  system  the 
Church  is  charged  with  dereliction ;  on  the  other  hand, 
whenever  things  move  along  normally  and  all  our  various 
agencies  efficiently  function,  there  is  little  said  for  the  in- 
stitution that  constitutes  a  large  part  of  the  source  of 
inspiration  and  power. 

We  do  believe  that  now  and  again  there  have  been 
marked  evidences  of  narrowness  and  bigotry  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  religious  institutions.  Again,  we  submit 
that  all  too  frequently  the  whole  accent  has  been  placed 
upon  future  bliss  rather  than  present  world  betterment; 
but  our  age  has  witnessed  revolutionary  changes,  not 
only  in  the  Church's  teaching  but  in  the  Church's  method. 
There  may  not  be  many  martyrs  in  our  day,  but  there  are 
certainly  Christian  heroes  to  be  found  in  every  town  and 
city  ready  to  spend  and  be  spent,  not  only  that  their  fel- 
lows may  have  a  clearer  realization  of  a  future  heaven, 
but  a  more  perfect  realization  of  a  better  world  in  which 
we  now  live. 

It  would  be  more  becoming  in  many  of  the  critics  of 
the  Church  to  lend  their  influence  through  co-operation 


72 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

in  bettering  conditions  as  they  conceive  them,  than  to 
stand  outside  this  sacred  institution  and  despoil  and 
defame  it  as  the  Germans  did  the  great  cathedral  at 
Rheims,  After  all,  the  only  kind  of  criticism  that  is 
worth  while  is  constructive  and  co-operative.  The  clergy 
are  not  by  any  means  free  from  faults,  but  it  is  our  ob- 
servation that  the  vast  majority  of  them  are,  with  great 
limitations  of  both  means  and  money,  prosecuting  a  work 
that  calls  for  harder  service,  greater  tact,  finer  diplomacy 
and  truer  consecration,  than  that  called  for  by  any  other 
occupation  with  which  we  are  familiar.  The  war  doubt- 
less will  effect  far-reaching  and  salutary  changes  in  the 
Church's  system,  and  we  hope  we  shall  have  a  saner  and 
more  consistent  religious  teaching  and  practice ;  but  this 
will  be  effected  through  the  exacting  labors  of  those  on 
the  inside  rather  than  the  stone-throwing  of  those  on  the 
outside. 

«t     «?    «t 

TRANSFORMED  POWER 

**''TpHY  name  shall  be  called  no  more  Jacob,  but  Israel ; 
X  for  as  a  prince  hast  thou  power  with  God  and  with 
men,  and  hast  prevailed."  The  man  to  whom  these 
words  were  spoken  was  one  whose  life  up  to  this  point 
had  witnessed  to  selfishness  and  self-seeking.  Jacob  had, 
by  deceit  and  sharp  practice,  attained  a  position  of  power 
and  influence,  but  it  was  power  and  influence  misused 
and  misdirected.  He  was  in  his  day  what  men  call 
"prosperous  and  successful,"  but  like  much  of  such  pros- 
perity and  success,  it  did  not  reckon  with  the  great  social 
plan  of  things.  A  certain  great  captain  of  industry 
declared  several  years  ago  that  he  regarded  it  as  a  sin 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 73 

for  a  man  to  die  rich,  and  forthwith  he  undertook  to  dis- 
pense the  millions  he  had  accumulated.  But,  work  as  he 
might,  and  he  did  it  with  unusual  consistency,  he  died 
before  his  task  was  accomplished.  Doubtless  the  last 
twenty  years  of  his  long  and  eventful  life  were  the  hap- 
piest he  experienced.  Like  Jacob,  he  reached  the  point 
where  he  realized  that  mere  self-seeking  and  self -having 
were  unworthy  and  unsatisfactory  ends.  It  is  amazing 
how  few  of  us  realize  the  real  purpose  of  life,  and  at  the 
same  time  its  deeper  joys,  until  we  have  passed  into  the 
period  that  men  call  old  age.  Jacob,  by  ordinary  stand- 
ards, was  a  respectable  member  of  society.  He  doubt- 
less made  ample  provision  for  his  own  household  and  was 
generous  to  his  own  immediate  servants.  But  his  life 
was  narrow,  insular  and  selfish  for  all  that.  He  had 
come  to  the  great  crisis  in  his  experience,  where  he  was 
returning  to  an  environment  that  he  had  dishonored  and 
that  promised  no  assurance  of  welcome.  He  was  driven 
to  think  seriously  of  the  consequences  of  his  sins  and 
mistakes,  and  it  was  while  in  deep  reflection,  coupled 
no  doubt  with  sincere  penitence,  that  he  was  called  from 
his  old  life  and  outlook  to  the  new  vision  of  life's  larger 
meaning.  His  very  name,  which  suggests  "supplanter," 
was  changed  to  Israel,  which  implies  princely  gifts  of 
power,  power  with  God  and  with  men.  In  other  v/ords, 
the  real  true  man,  with  all  the  hitherto  unrecognized  and 
unused  potentialities,  emerged.  It  was  not  merely  a 
change  of  name,  but  rather  a  change  of  character,  and 
with  the  change  of  character,  a  new  purpose  in  life. 

We  recall  as  we  write  another  notable  case  of  this 
transformation.  Many  years  ago  there  came  under  our 
observation  a  man  of  unusual  gifts  and  power,  whose 
large  accumulations  of  wealth  were  the  result  -of  his 
genius  and   application.     He  had   reached  three  score 


74  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

years,  and  up  to  that  time  he  had  interpreted  Hfe  and  its 
meaning  in  the  terms  of  self -development  and  self-having. 
Suddenly  he  was  arrested  by  the  fact  that  there  was 
something  better  to  do  in  the  world  than  to  accumulate 
wealth.  Further  than  this,  he  realized  that  if  he  were 
to  have  the  experience  and  joy  of  doing  something  for 
others,  it  were  better  to  do  it  before  his  will  was  probatecr. 
The  result  of  his  determination  raised  him  from  a  posi- 
tion of  indifferent  regard  in  the  city  in  which  he  lived 
to  a  place  of  high  distinction  and  power.  He  later  be- 
came the  center  of  the  people's  affection.  In  other  words, 
he  had  power  with  God  and  with  men,  and  prevailed. 

Where  Jesus  touched  men's  lives,  he  sought  to  interpret 
to  them  the  real  nobility  of  service  for  others.  In  other 
words.  He  transformed  them.  It  is  coming  to  be  as- 
sumed that  no  man  or  woman  may  have  power  with  their 
fellows  and  prevail,  unless  they  have  power  with  God. 
Said  a  great  author,  "the  Almighty  writes  a  letter  of 
credit  on  some  men's  faces,  which  is  honored  wherever 
presented."     Such  lives  need  no  human  under-writing. 

To  see  men  and  women  struggling  to  accumulate,  sim- 
ply that  they  may  have,  rather  than  accumulating  that 
they  may  give,  and  in  giving  prevail,  is  indeed  pathetic, 
if  not  tragic.  After  all,  power  of  any  kind  is  valuable 
only  when  its  true  serviceability  is  realized  and  applied, 
and  the  sooner  every  one  of  us  begins  to  realize  this  fact, 
the  sooner  will  we  create  that  great  fraternity  of  interests 
for  which  the  war  was  fought  and  for  which  we  believe, 
under  God,  it  was  won. 


•t    «?    •? 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  75 


THE  GREATNESS  OF  PERSONALITY 

^^^'T^  HE    spirit    of    the    living    creature    was    in    the 

A    wheels." 

Our  age  has  often  been  called  the  "age  of  the  machine," 
an  age  in  which  the  value  of  personality  seems  to  have 
been  neglected.  Even  man  himself  has  been  all  too 
frequently  regarded  as  part  of  a  vast  mechanism.  This 
conception  of  the  value  of  the  individual  has  had  a  tend- 
ency to  destroy  initiative  and  weaken  ambition.  It  is 
interesting  to  note,  however,  that  in  every  age  the  sub- 
ordination of  personality  to  systems  or  mechanisms  has 
resulted  in  ultimate  disaster  and  defeat.  Perhaps  the 
most  brilliant  modern  example  we  have  is  that  of  the 
German  army.  No  more  perfect  machine  has  ever  been 
created,  and  even  in  its  latest  hours  it  moved  with  mar- 
velous harmony  and  efficiency,  but  an  army  of  machine- 
made  soldiers  was  defeated  by  an  army  of  men  whose 
initiative  and  enthusiasm  had  not  been  destroyed.  It 
was  not  numbers  or  even  training,  but  rather  the  spirit 
of  the  living  creature  in  the  wheels  that  wrought  the 
victory. 

America  may  not  be  as  mature  as  some  of  the  old  world 
powers,  but,  up  to  the  present,  America  has  reckoned 
with  the  value  and  importance  of  a  highly  developed  per- 
sonality. As  we  go  forward  we  need  to  emphasize  this 
more  and  more,  and  every  agency  in  the  state  should  be 
employed  to  effect  this  supremely  important  end. 

This  has  particular  application  to  our  religious  and 
educational  institutions.  It  was  a  brilliant  writer  who 
once  wrote:  "Education  that  informs  only  the  head  and 
the  hand  is  incomplete,  it  must  inform  and  train  the 
heart  and  the  will  also,"     We  have  known  men  and 


76 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

women  who  moved  with  such  precision  in  thought  and 
action  that  they  suggested  to  us  highly  developed  ma- 
chines. We  were  interested  but  not  inspired  by  the  per- 
fect regularity  and  seeming  accuracy  with  which  they 
discharged  their  obligations,  but,  after  all,  they  were  only 
machines ;  and  they  lacked  both  initiative  and  originality. 
They  were  trained  to  run  in  grooves  and  once  out  of 
their  normal  and  fixed  habitat  they  could  not  efficiently 
function. 

Jesus  is  the  supreme  developer  of  personality  and  the 
demonstration  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  those  remarkable 
men  who  consorted  with  Him  and  whom  He  actually  re- 
created. He  discovered  in  the  fishermen  who  were  His 
disciples  qualities  they  had  never  discovered  to  their  own 
consciousness  and  in  developing  these  qualities  He  lifted 
them  to  places  of  supreme  power.  His  whole  plan  or 
scheme  of  life  was  designed  to  bring  out  of  men  those 
unrecognized  elements  that  they  possessed  and  to  give 
them  a  wider  field  of  operation.  We  think  too  much  of 
religion  in  the  terms  of  mechanisms  and  systems  and  the 
church  will  not  do  its  large  work  in  the  world  until,  like 
its  Master,  it  seeks  for  the  liberation  in  man  of  his  high- 
est gifts  and  qualities  of  mind  and  heart. 

The  world  is  not  so  much  interested  in  creeds  and 
formularies  as  it  is  in  lives  that  incarnate  them  and 
practice  them.  In  other  words,  Christianity  interprets 
itself  through  personality,  and  however  much  we  may 
need,  for  the  purposes  of  corporate  worship,  definite 
forms,  above  all  else  we  need  today  men  and  women  who 
in  themselves  are  living  witnesses.  A  single  glorified 
personality  like  that  of  John  Howard,  England's  great 
prison  reformer,  contributes  more  to  the  alleviation  of 
unnecessary  suffering  than  a  multitude  of  committees 
with  their  wearisome  resolutions  and  good  intentions. 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  77 


There  reside  in  each  one  of  us  God-given  qualities  that 
constitute  our  peculiar  and  unique  personality.  To  bring 
this  personality  to  its  highest  development  is  man's  su- 
preme accomplishment. 


w 


wi.   n   ^ 

BEWARE  OF  A  PANIC 

■  HEN  Jesus  Christ  warned  men  of  impending  dis- 
asters and  declared  that  multiplied  sorrows  were 
coming  on  the  earth,  He  concluded  by  saying:  "When 
these  things  begin  to  come  to  pass,  then  look  up  and  lift 
your  heads  for  your  redemption  draweth  nigh."  The 
sublimity  of  His  example  when  He  stood  alone  and  un- 
friended before  a  Roman  governor,  and  again  when  He 
was  haled  before  an  illegal  tribunal  that  condemned 
Him  to  the  tortures  of  the  cross,  is  the  finest  exhibition 
of  courage,  devotion  and  freedom  from  all  fear  that  the 
world  contains.  His  teachings,  that  constitute  the  whole 
basis  of  the  Christian  religion,  never  reckon  with  the 
element  of  fear,  they  dismiss  it  as  unworthy  of  con- 
sideration. The  Apostle  Paul,  who  caught  his  inspira- 
tion from  the  example  and  teaching  of  Jesus,  regarded 
fear  as  un-Christian,  and  he  spoke  of  those  who  "all 
their  lifetime  are  subject  to  bondage  through  fear."  The 
example  of  the  early  Christian  church  has  been  largely 
lost  to  our  present  age,  and  Christian  heroism  has,  in 
large  part,  given  way  to  pagan  fear. 

We  have  had  presented  to  us  on  the  great  battlefields 
of  Europe  new  interpretations  of  fearlessness.  Major 
Whittlesey  and  his  ambushed  comrades,  who  refused  to 
surrender,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  they  were  under- 
ammunitioned  and  cut  off  from  retreat,  is  a  signal  ex- 


78  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

ample  of  what  we  mean.  Here  was  a  former  New  York 
man,  who  two  years  ago,  had  no  thought  of  anything 
other  than  the  pursuits  of  business,  who,  with  his  men, 
in  the  hour  of  a  great  emergency,  disclosed  a  heroism 
finer  than  that  of  Leonidas.  We  do  not  know  what  men 
are  capable  of  until  they  are  put  to  the  test. 

It  ill  behooves  those  of  us  safely  at  home,  who  believe 
in  the  superintending  providence  and  care  of  a  great 
Father,  to  become  panicky  because  of  multiplied  disasters. 
Fires  and  world-wide  epidemics  take  their  toll  of  life 
and  property.  Now,  as  never  before,  is  the  time  for  the 
exhibition  of  Christian  fortitude  and  courage.  Now  is 
the  time  to  make  our  faith  a  living  and  sustaining  power. 
Now  is  the  time  to  demonstrate  to  the  world  that  we 
actually  live  by  the  things  we  profess  to  believe.  The  vast 
majority  of  us  here  at  home  are  very  properly  classi- 
fied by  the  words  of  the  psalmist,  "They  were  in  great 
fear,  where  no  fear  was."  We  do  not  mean  to  imply  that 
blind  courage  or  reckless  indifference  are  the  evidence  of 
Christian  faith,  but  we  do  mean  to  say  that  anxious  fear 
is  un-Christian  and  detrimental  to  the  things  of  body 
and  soul. 

Sane  precautions  and  the  wise  and  consistent  recog- 
nition of  rules  and  regulations  that  are  born  out  of 
long  experience  are  indispensable  to  our  individual  and 
corporate  well-being,  but  for  professing  Christian  people 
to  become  panicky  in  times  like  the  present,  witnesses  to 
their  weakness  and  to  the  utter  failure  of  their  whole 
philosophy  of  life.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  let  us  acknowl- 
edge that  many  of  us  accept  our  Christian  beliefs  as 
matters  of  interest  and  speculation,  rather  than  as  prin- 
ciples that  have  to  do  with  opinion-making  and  habit- 
forming,  and  that  are  designed  to  regulate  and  control 
the  whole  action  of  life.     It  is  for  this  reason  that  all 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  79 

too  frequently  the  church  and  Christian  people  are  made 
the  subjects  of  derision  and  contempt.  We  remember 
seeing  carved  on  an  old  house  in  Chester  the  legend, 
"God's  providence  is  mine  inheritance."  The  legend 
stood  conspicuously  upon  the  highway  to  remind  the 
passerby  of  one  of  the  large  facts  of  life.  Let  us  re- 
build the  waste  places,  let  us  succor  the  suffering  and 
alleviate  the  pains  of  the  dying,  and  let  us  do  all  this 
while  we  hold  to  our  faith  without  wavering,  believing 
that,  when  the  storm  clouds  are  past,  there  must  come, 
in  all  its  fullness  and  glory,  the  "new  earth  wherein 
dwelleth  righteousness."  Crises  may  test  our  faith,  they 
must  not  destroy  it. 

THE  JOY  OF  SERVICE 

IN  one  of  Emerson's  essays  he  speaks  of  some  people 
as  having  the  appearance  of  being  "whipped  through 
the  world,"  and  in  another  place  he  speaks  of  certain 
children  as  being  "dragged  up"  instead  of  being  brought 
up.  In  both  cases  he  is  seeking  to  make  clear  the  differ- 
ence between  living  by  the  rule  of  "must,"  and  living 
by  the  rule  of  a  ready  and  happy  obedience.  Perhaps, 
today,  as  never  before,  these  distinctions  are  being  made 
clearer  to  us  in  our  great  camps  scattered  over  the  coun- 
try; and  we  are  happy  to  say,  from  personal  observa- 
tion, that  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the  men  are, 
whether  conscripted  or  enlisted,  exemplars  by  rule  and 
conduct  of  the  happy,  responsive,  and  obedient  volunteer. 
In  other  words,  it  seems  to  us  that  our  men  have  learned 
the  lesson  of  the  text,  "If  I  do  this  thing  willingly,  I 
have  a  reward." 


80  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

We  believe  this  view  of  life  is  vitally  related  to  its 
largest  efficiency  and  truest  happiness.  It  discloses  it- 
self in  the  child  in  the  class-room,  whose  readiness  and 
willingness  to  accept  the  discipline  of  study  inevitably 
results  in  satisfactory  work  and  the  largest  mental  at- 
tainments. Again,  this  rule  practically  serves  as  the 
dividing  line  between  those  in  the  work-room  of  in- 
dustry who  live  and  work  by  the  clock,  with  resulting 
indifference  and  frequent  failure,  and  those  who  work 
by  the  rule  of  a  ready  and  willing  service,  and  a  fine  con- 
sciousness of  responsibility,  with  the  inevitable  results — 
a  life  of  contentment  and  measurable  success.  Again, 
it  has  its  application  to  all  forms  of  professional  life. 
It  is  axiomatic  that  no  one  succeeds  in  any  high  pro- 
fession, no  matter  what  that  profession  may  be,  unless 
he  is  truly  in  love  with  the  thing  in  which  his  life  is 
enlisted.  Can  we  imagine  a  doctor  with  any  degree  of 
efficiency  or  power  without  this  essential  love  and  de- 
votion? Can  we  imagine  a  lawyer,  an  engineer,  or  a 
clergyman  discharging  the  functions  of  his  high  office 
simply  for  the  compensation  he  receives?  Has  there 
ever  been  any  outstanding  genius  in  any  realm  of  life 
who  has  not  experienced  the  joy  of  service  and  had  as 
his  highest  reward,  not  the  world's  cheap  adulation, 
but  the  consciousness  within  himself  of  work  well  done? 

All  the  square  pegs  in  round  holes,  or  in  other  words, 
all  the  misfits  in  life  are  witnesses  to  the  false  theory, 
that  life  is  a  stern  and  bitter  experience  and  that 
all  its  work  and  service  are  the  exactions  of  a  hard 
and  inexorable  taskmaster.  We  are  all  agreed,  that  no 
soldier  is  fit  to  serve  his  country  who  feels  that  he  is 
forced  to  do  so  against  his  own  will. 

All  that  we  have  been  saying  applies  particularly  to 
our  religious  life.     How  many  young  people  miscon- 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  81 

ceive  the  true  values  of  religion,  because  of  the  unwise 
and  oftentimes  un-Christian  training  received  in  youth. 
Religion,  instead  of  being  the  most  popular  and  satisfy- 
ing experience  of  life,  all  too  frequently  is  made  the 
most  distasteful  and  repellant  by  those  who  "have  a 
zeal  of  God,  but  not  according  to  knowledge."  We  have 
fallen  upon  a  period  that  must  witness  to  vast  and  far- 
reaching  changes  in  many  of  our  systems  and  methods. 
Let  us  hope  that  among  other  things  the  war  shall  teach 
us,  we  may  learn  that  all  life's  service,  in  its  every  form, 
is  rendered  efficient  and  joy-producing  only  in  so  far  as 
it  is  done  with  glad  willingness,  with  selfless  devotion, 
and  with  a  real  vision  of  its  definite  and  high  purpose, 
which  is,  to  devote  the  best  there  is  in  us  to  the  best 
ends,  and  to  make  the  world,  for  those  whose  lives  we 
touch  and  influence,  an  infinitely  happier  and  more 
wholesome  place  in  which  to  live. 

THE  LAW  OF  ADAPTATION 

'^'^tO  man  putteth  new  wine  into  old  bottles." 
i-^  Jesus  was  essentially  a  modernist.  Although  an 
unfailing  devotee  of  the  customs  of  His  people,  He 
recognized  and  obeyed  the  law  of  adaptation.  In  the 
present  instance  which  the  text  sets  forth,  He  was  seek- 
ing to  make  evident  to  his  critics  the  new  principles 
that  were  to  govern  human  life  in  the  changed  and 
changing  conditions  in  the  days  that  were  to  come. 
What  he  actually  said  was :  "No  man  putteth  new  wine 
into  old  wine  skins,  else  the  new  wine  doth  burst  the 
wine  skins,  the  wine  is  spilled  and  the  wine  skins  will 
be  marred."    He  was  thinking  of  those  powers  gener- 


82  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

ated  through  fermentation,  and  He  was  maintaining  that 
the  stiffness  and  the  hardness  of  the  old  wine  skins,  un- 
yielding as  they  were,  would  cause  them  to  crack  and 
break  because  of  the  fermentation  of  the  new  wine.  It 
must  necessarily  be  placed  in  new  and  elastic  skins. 

The  illustration  is  one  that  is  readily  understood,  but  it 
was  a  hard  lesson  for  the  traditionalists  of  His  day  and 
time  to  comprehend.  Jesus  ever  reckoned  with  environ- 
ing conditions  and  circumstances.  He  always  showed 
a  fine  tolerance  to  those  who,  by  reason  of  training  or 
mental  limitations,  were  unable  to  see  clearly  at  onc-e 
the  great  principles  of  life  He  came  to  enunciate.  Re- 
peatedly He  rebuked  his  disciples  because,  in  their  zeal 
for  what  they  conceived  to  be  the  inflexible  and  arbitrary 
rules  of  their  religious  system,  they  reckoned  not  with 
the  limitations  of  those  with  whom  they  dealt.  Obvious- 
ly, Jesus  laid  down  certain  definite  fundamental  prin- 
ciples that  were  to  regulate  and  govern  His  Kingdom. 
Such  principles  as  the  Fatherhood  of  God  and  the 
Brotherhood  of  Man  were  not  subject  to  the  shifting 
changes  of  time  or  place. 

One  of  the  amazing  things  about  His  whole  teaching 
is  that  it  is  so  flexible  in  its  adaptation  that  it  applies 
with  as  much  force  to  the  Occident  as  to  the  Orient.  He 
was  in  no  sense  like  other  great  religious  teachers,  the 
leader  of  a  race  or  the  exponent  of  any  insular  system 
of  ethics.  The  world's  greatest  thinkers  and  scholars 
have  recognized  the  universality  of  His  plan  and  system, 
and  its  amazing  adaptability  to  all  kinds  and  conditions 
of  men  the  world  over.  Repeatedly,  His  followers,  with 
a  zeal  that  was  "not  according  to  knowledge,"  have 
sought  to  lay  hard  and  fast  limitations  upon  His  teach- 
ings and  to  require  that  those  who  would  become  the 
adherents  of  His  great  faith  should  recognize  and  obey 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  83 


one  universal  law  and  one  universal  practice.  Much  of 
the  Church's  great  missionary  endeavor  has  failed  be- 
cause of  this  fact.  With  misguided  zeal  we  of  this 
Western  world  have  approached  the  older  races  of  the 
East,  demanding  a  punctilious  regard  for  both  the  ex- 
pression and  practice  of  the  faith.  Again,  we  have  sadly 
erred  in  seeking  to  restrict  and  restrain  the  exuberance 
and  spontaneity  of  youth  by  forcing  upon  it  certam  hard 
and  inflexible  laws  that  rendered  its  reasonable  and  nor- 
mal habits  stale  and  unsatisfactory. 

For  the  abundant  life  which  He  came  to  give,  alas  we 
have  too  often  presented  the  circumscribed  and  restricted 
life  Hence,  the  new  wine  has  burst  the  old  wine  skms 
and  much  of  that  splendid,  exhilarating,  youthful  m- 
fluence  which  the  Church  covets,  and  without  which  it 
loses  its  freshness,  has  been  lost.  There  can  be  no 
question  about  it;  Jesus  recognized  unfailingly  the  law 
of  adaptation.  He  dealt  in  a  kindly  and  gracious  way 
with  human  conditions  as  He  found  them,  and  by  a 
process  of  winsome  love  He  restrained  and  reformed  the 
erring.  In  this  present  plastic  period  it  were  well  for 
those  of  us  who  are  charged  with  the  great  responsibil- 
ities of  propagating  religion,  if  we  gave  greater  heed  to 
the  divine  method  and  practice. 

Wi    K    ^ 
THE  UNDYING  FIRE 

HE  SHALL  baptize  you  with  fire."    This  was  part 
of  the  valedictory  address  of  the  great  preachcr 
who  bore  the  rare  distinction  of  being  the  "forerunner 
of  Christ.    Retiring  before  the  supreme  messenger  whose 
>vay  he  had  come  to  prepare,  he  declared  that  where  he 


84 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

had  baptized  his  disciples  with  water,  the  great  Master 
would  baptize  them  with  fire.  That  John's  disciples 
had  been  zealous  in  the  new  cause  of  which  he  was  the 
acknowledged  leader  is  self-evident,  but  mightier  than 
John  there  was  at  hand,  about  to  enter  human  life,  a 
power  so  potential  that  all  the  world  should  come  to  feel 
its  influence  and  acknowledge  its  supremacy.  The  fire 
kindled  by  the  Sovereign  Teacher  from  Nazareth  has  il- 
luminated the  world  and  while  now  and  again  in  the 
course  of  human  history  it  has  seemed  to  lessen  and  de- 
cline, it  has  never  been  extinguished,  and  today  men  are 
recognizing  its  illuminating,  refining  and  inspiring  influ- 
ence. 

H.  G.  Wells,  in  his  latest  book,  "The  Undying  Fire," 
has,  as  never  before  in  his  prolific  writings,  recognized 
the  urgent  and  tragic  need  of  this  Christ-influence  in  all 
human  concerns.  True,  Mr.  Wells  declares  the  supreme- 
ly important  place  that  education  must  occupy  in  an  age 
of  reconstruction,  but  it  is  not  merely  education  that  is- 
sues in  culture  that  he  clamors  for,  it  is  the  deepening  of 
the  religious  conviction  that  an  undying  fire  burns  in 
the  hearts  of  men,  if  they  will  but  recognize  it,  giving 
both  light  and  energy  for  the  great  moral  struggle  in 
which  mankind  is  engaged,  as  well  as  affording  an  as- 
surance of  ultimate  and  complete  victory.  In  fine,  the 
undying  fire  that  is  quenchless  is  the  deep-rooted  con- 
viction that  man  is  eternally  and  essentially  related  to 
God,  and  that  in  some  poor  and  humble  way  he  is  co- 
operating, to  the  end  that  God's  will  and  purpose  may  ul- 
timately prevail. 

Says  Mr.  Wells :  "For  four  years  now,  the  world  has 
been  marching  deeper  and  deeper  into  tragedy.  Our 
life  grows  more  and  more  insecure.  All  human  relation- 
ships have  been  strained,  and  behind  the  tragedy  of  war- 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  85 

fare  comes  the  gaunt  and  desolating  face  of  universal 
famine,  and  behind  famine,  pestilence."  Truly,  he  paints 
a  gloomy  and  forbidding  picture  and  yet  the  great  pub- 
licists and  economists  hesitate  to  refute  his  chilling  state- 
ments. One  of  the  greatest  authorities  on  financial  and 
economic  conditions  whose  weekly  reports  find  a  con- 
spicuous place  in  every  commercial  house,  in  one  of  his 
recent  letters  to  his  clients  says :  "The  need  of  the  hour 
is  not  more  legislation.  The  need  of  the  hour  is  more 
religion.  More  religion  is  needed  everywhere,  from,  the 
halls  of  Congress  at  Washington  to  the  factories,  mines, 
fields  and  forests.  It  is  one  thing  to  talk  about  plans 
and  policies,  but  a  plan  and  policy  without  religious  mo- 
tives are  like  a  watch  without  a  spring  or  a  body  without 
the  breath  of  Hfe." 

It  was  over  a  hundred  years  ago  that  Carlyle  wrote : 
"A  new  splendor  of  God  must  come  out  of  the  heart 
of  this  industrial  age."  It  was  the  reasoning  of  the  canny 
Scotch  philosopher  in  a  period  where  the  problems  were 
far  less  complex  and  difficult  of  solution  than  they  are 
today.  Neither  the  high  cost  of  living  nor  the  adjustment 
of  international  difficulties  through  a  league  of  nations 
will  bring  the  world  back  to  normal  conditions.  The 
sanctions  of  religion  and  the  unfailing  recognition  of 
them  underlie  our  very  peace  and  security.  It  is  grow- 
ing increasingly  clear  that  we  must  be  visited  with  a 
new  baptism  of  fire.  Apathy  and  indifference  to  funda- 
mental religious  principles,  disregard  of  the  sanctity  and 
sanctions  of  religion,  a  social  liie  whose  practice  con- 
travenes the  mighty  teachings  of  the  Nazarene,  and  a 
flippant  unconcern  for  moral  and  religious  obligations 
have  brought  us  perilously  near  the  cataclysm  which  Mr. 
Wells  describes.  The  call  that  is  heard  around  the  world 
is  for  a  return  to  the  ways  of  sane  and  wholesome  piety. 


86  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 


RECLAMATION 

<*T)  REAK  up  your  fallow  ground,  and  sow  not  among 
-D  thorns."  This  was  the  call  to  a  nation  to  make 
larger  use  of  its  opportunities  and  to  use  finer  discretion 
in  the  choice  of  the  soil  in  which  to  sow  those  large 
principles  of  Hfe  that  produce  ultimately  the  best  and 
most  enduring  results.  The  implication  contained  in 
the  admonition  is,  that  the  nation  had  been  unmindful  of 
the  value  of  its  ground  and  hence  had  failed  in  making 
the  best  use  of  it  and,  again,  its  sowing  had  been  with- 
out discrimination  or  good  judgment,  with  the  result  that 
thorns  had  destroyed  its  product. 

Some  one  once  said :  "There  are  stops  in  our  organ 
that  we  have  never  drawn,  and  that  may  contain  our 
divinest  harmonies."  This  is  only  another  way  of  saying 
that  some  of  the  best  things  in  life  we  fail  to  achieve 
because  we  misuse  or  fail  to  use  the  opportunities  that 
lie  nearest  at  hand.  To  know  a  thing  is  a  distinct  ad- 
vantage, but  to  know  how  to  use  and  get  the  largest  re- 
sults out  of  our  knowledge  is  infinitely  more  important. 
The  man  who  understands  values  has  a  large  advantage, 
but  the  man  who  knows  how  to  use  and  employ  values 
is  the  man  who  ultimately  comes  to  success.  This  has 
its  wide  application  to  our  whole  system  of  education. 
We  are  beginning  to  learn  what  the  purpose  of  education 
is,  and  some  day  we  may  progress  so  far  as  to  relate  ed- 
ucation to  the  practical  needs  of  our  system  of  living. 

When  the  war  broke  out  the  nations  engaged  found 
that  economy  in  the  use  of  soil  as  well  as  of  men  was  an 
indispensable  thing,  and  we  in  America  turned  some  of 
our  fancy  gardens  as  well  as  our  unproductive  fields  to 
a  new  and  more  practical  account.    We  talk  now  in  the 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 87 

terms  of  conservation.  Even  the  misfits  as  well  as  the 
unfits  are  being  carefully  considered.  We  addressed  re- 
cently what  is  known  in  the  army  as  a  "Development 
Battalion,"  which  consisted  of  all  kinds  and  types  of  men 
with  all  kinds  and  types  of  maladies  and  physical  in- 
firmities. What  was  the  army  doing  with  them  ?  It  was, 
by  a  selective  process,  fitting  them  for  some  form  of 
service  in  some  branch  of  our  great  enterprise.  When 
we  get  back  to  normal  living  we  shall  have  development 
schools  in  our  towns  and  cities,  and  we  doubt  not  we 
shall  also  have  new  systems  and  methods  of  development 
in  our  homes,  schools  and  churches. 

A  fine  dictum  for  our  time  is  the  word  of  the  Master: 
"Let  nothing  be  lost."  All  this  has  its  application  to  the 
things  of  character.  There  is  doubtless  a  way  of  making 
the  crooked  tree  straight  as  well  as  of  making  the 
crooked  life  splendid  and  useful.  Here,  let  us  say,  the 
finest  Christian  sympathy  is  demanded  as  well  as  the 
most  infinite  patience  and  the  largest  spirit  of  hopeful- 
ness. There  is  fallow  ground  all  about  us,  unused  soil, 
and  a  lot  of  this,  through  the  greatest  carelessness  in  the 
method  of  sowing,  is  unproductive.  Sowing  among 
thorns  is  a  profitless  thing.  If  the  ground  is  to  yield 
its  full  harvest,  the  thorns  must  be  removed.  The  thorns 
in  our  human  life  are  the  vices  and  sins  that  are  all  too 
prolific.  As  we  conceive  our  great  task  it  is  a  work  of 
reclamation  and  redemption ;  the  reclamation  and  re- 
demption of  men  and  things  is  the  big  work  that  lies 
immediately  ahead.  We  are  going  to  make  the  world 
a  fit  place  in  which  to  live,  but  we  shall  make  it  fit  only 
as  we  make  it  better,  and  we  shall  make  it  better  through 
a  finer  and  saner  use  of  the  materials  with  which  we 
have  to  do. 


88  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 


A  FRESH  OUTLOOK 

**  T  WILL  arise  and  go  to  my  Father."  This  was  the 
JL  final  decision  of  a  man  who  for  years  had  lived  in 
the  far  country  of  self -gratification  and  self-desire.  It 
is  part  of  the  narrative  taken  from  what  has  been  called 
"the  greatest  story  ever  told."  A  modern  writer  sees  in 
it  the  most  comprehensive  teaching  that  ever  came  from 
the  lips  of  Christ,  and  another  calls  it  the  "evangel 
within  the  evangel." 

Of  course  the  central  figure  in  the  story  is  the  loving 
and  forgiving  father,  but  there  is  something  about  this 
youth  who  had  spent  his  all  in  riotous  living,  and  who 
finally  came  to  himself,  resolving  in  the  face  of  all  dif- 
ficulties and  embarrassments  to  return  to  the  father's 
house,  that  is  altogether  compelling  and  fascinating.  By 
his  own  carelessness  and  forgetfulness  of  every  reason- 
able restraint,  it  would  seem  that  he  had  destroyed  every 
avenue  of  approach  to  the  home  that  he  had  dishonored, 
but  in  Christ's  conception  of  the  situation,  there  could 
be  no  such  thing  as  permanent  exile  from  the  father's 
house.  The  only  thing  that  was  needed  to  get  back  to 
the  normal  habit  of  living  was  the  will  and  the  determ- 
ination, coupled,  of  course,  with  true  repentance. 

In  expressing  the  great  mind  and  purpose  of  the 
father,  Christ  declared  that,  when  the  son  was  yet  a 
great  way  off,  his  father  saw  him  and  ran  and  met  him. 
There  were  no  stern  rebukes  or  painful  admonitions; 
there  was  but  one  supreme  expression  of  joy :  "This  my 
son  was  dead  and  is  alive  again ;  he  was  lost  and  is 
found."  This  story  is  as  modern  as  it  is  universally  true. 
It  is  misnamed  the  story  of  the  "Prodigal  Son."  It  is 
the  story  of  the  Beneficent  Father.    There  is  not  a  man 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 89 

or  woman  of  us  but  has  had  far-country  experiences. 
We  get  out  of  our  natural  and  normal  environment. 
Sometimes  we  do  it  through  self-will,  sometimes  we  do 
it  through  force  of  fortuitous  circumstances.  The  whole 
question  with  us  is:  "Can  we  make  the  resolve  to  go 
back  again  to  the  Father's  house?"  To  do  this  some- 
times means  breaking  with  environing  conditions,  cus- 
toms, social  conventions  and  a  multitude  of  other  things. 
It  calls  for  courage  and  the  exercise  of  the  sovereignty 
of  the  will. 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson  is  a  fair  example  of  what  we 
mean.  As  a  young  man  he  rebelled  against  his  Scotch 
household  and  the  restraints  of  his  father's  house.  Al- 
ways physically  weak,  he  grew  worse  in  his  life  in  Paris. 
But  even  physical  weakness  did  not  bring  him  back 
again,  and  he  continued  for  years  in  a  far  country.  He 
crossed  this  Continent  in  freight  cars  and  was  found 
apparently  dying  on  the  streets  of  San  Francisco.  Even 
then  he  had  hardly  come  to  himself,  and  it  was  only 
after  he  had  reached  the  clear  conviction  that  the  Chris- 
tian rule  was  the  only  rule  of  life  worth  following  that 
he  began  to  turn  yearningly  towards  the  old  Scotch  home 
and  to  long  for  the  old  fellowships.  At  length  he  said 
within  himself:  "I  will  arise  and  go  to  my  father."  It 
was  a  blessed  reconciliation,  and  although  the  following 
years  were  tragic  and  full  of  frightful  struggle  against 
the  inroads  of  disease,  they  were  marked  by  a  peace  and 
satisfaction  that  has  won  the  admiration  of  all  men  who 
have  read  the  matchless  writings  of  this  great  Scot. 
Thinking  of  Stevenson,  we  are  reminded  of  one  of  the 
most  beautifully  conceived  and  finely  expressed  forms 
of  resolution  with  which  we  are  familiar,  and  it  finds  a 
fitting  place  in  this  little  sermon. 

"Jo  be  honest,  to  be  kind — ^to  earn  a  little  and  to 


90 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

spend  a  little  less ;  to  make  upon  the  whole  a  family 
happier  for  his  presence ;  to  renounce  when  that  shall  be 
necessary  and  not  be  embittered ;  to  keep  a  few  friends, 
but  these  without  capitulation — above  all,  on  the  same 
grim  condition,  to  keep  friends  with  himself — here  is  a 
task  for  all  that  a  man  has  of  fortitude  and  delicacy." 

THE  DISCIPLINE  OF  CHANGE 

"1%yTOAB  hath  been  at  ease  from  his  youth,  and  he 
IVX  hath  settled  on  his  lees,  and  hath  not  been  emptied 
from  vessel  to  vessel."  The  figure  used  by  the  prophet, 
Jeremiah,  is  taken  from  an  industry  familiar  to  the  peo- 
ple of  Moab,  namely,  the  making  of  wine.  The  process 
of  manufacture  required  that  the  juice  of  the  grape 
should  be  strained  and  emptied  from  vessel  to  vessel 
for  the  purpose  of  removing  the  dregs  or  lees.  Where 
this  process  was  omitted,  the  wine  settled  on  its  lees,  and 
in  due  time  was  contaminated  and  became  sour.  The 
implication  of  the  passage  is  that  a  process  of  discipline 
accompanied  by  a  reasonable  amount  of  change  is  de- 
manded for  the  best  development  of  both  individuals 
and  peoples.  Secure  in  her  prosperity,  Moab  had  be- 
come stagnant,  and  both  her  virility  and  strength  were 
impaired. 

This  has  application  to  all  forms  of  life.  Contrast 
the  walled-in  and  insular  life  of  China,  with  its  cen- 
turies of  unchanging  conditions,  with  the  varied  and  in- 
teresting life  of  Great  Britain,  marked  by  many  vicis- 
situdes and  characterized  by  repeated  changes.  The  first 
is  a  nation  that  witnesses  to  stagnation,  the  second  is  a 
people  that  witnesses  to  action  and  amazing  advance. 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 91 

Abundant  illustrations  of  this  are  to  be  found  on  the 
page  of  history. 

The  changes  in  this  present  age  are  so  great  and  fol- 
low so  quickly  one  upon  the  other  that  they  fairly  be- 
wilder us,  and  those  who  take  counsel  of  their  fears 
cry  out,  "Whither  are  we  drifting?"  We  have  wit- 
nessed in  the  life  of  our  own  nation  this  process  of 
discipline  through  change.  We  have  seen  America  liter- 
ally poured  out  of  the  vessel  of  her  own  insular  self- 
conceit  and  self-satisfaction  into  the  new  vessel  formed 
and  fashioned  in  France  that  represents  sacrifice,  great 
and  incalculable.  Who  among  us  today  regrets  this  pour- 
ing of  the  life  of  our  people  into  this  ampler  vessel  of 
service?  We  believe  the  process  has  refined,  ennobled, 
and  enriched  us  as  a  nation.  We  have  come  to  see  now 
more  clearly  that  we  needed  this  discipline.  Other  and 
perhaps  more  serious  changes  lie  ahead  and  the  process 
of  purification  must  go  on,  but  let  us  believe  that,  how- 
ever great  the  changes  and  however  unusual  and  strange 
the  new  vessels  into  which  our  life  is  to  be  poured,  we 
are  to  come  to  higher  stages  of  development  in  which 
our  ideals  are  to  be  translated  into  new  policies  of 
service  and  into  finer  expressions  of  Christian  brother- 
hood and  fellowship.  Those  elements  in  our  corporate 
life  that  have  tended  to  sour  and  embitter  us  must  be 
strained  out,  that  the  pure  wine  of  our  national  life  may 
be  rendered  wholesome  and  helpful. 

This  discipline  of  change  has  its  application  to  the  in- 
dividual. Shakespeare  said  that  "home-keeping  youths 
have  ever  homely  wits."  We  do  not  assume  that  this 
is  a  recommendation  to  unrestricted  adventure  or  the 
wild  pursuit  of  folly.  It  is  clearly  evident  that  the  lads 
of  our  homes  who  were  suddenly  forced  into  a  new  and 
strange  military  environment  have,  through  this  process 


92 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

of  change,  experienced  the  clarifying  of  their  vision, 
the  strengthening  of  their  patriotism,  and  the  truer  real- 
ization of  their  idealism.  It  remains  to  be  seen  what 
this  discipline  of  change  in  the  lives  of  these  youths 
is  to  produce  in  the  coming  days. 

To  some  of  us  a  crisis  or  catastrophe  must  come  to 
arouse  us  from  our  dream  of  indolence,  ease,  and  self- 
satisfaction.  Even  the  Son  of  Man  was  "made  perfect 
through  suffering."  His  life  was  a  varied,  tried,  and 
tested  one.  In  Him,  we  witness  the  sublimest  expres- 
sion of  self-sacrificing  service.  In  Him,  we  find  the 
supremest  expression  of  a  willingness  to  yield,  even  to 
the  death  upon  the  cross,  that  through  this  abnegation 
of  Himself,  He  might  lift  humanity  to  a  truer  concep- 
tion of  the  highest  and  holiest  values  of  human  service. 
As  we  face  the  future  with  its  exacting  disciplines,  that 
must  come  through  changed  and  changing  conditions, 
let  us  take  counsel  of  our  hopes  and  not  of  our  fears. 

THE  SECRET  OF  GREATNESS 

A  YOUNG  student  who  happened  to  be  the  guest 
of  Phillips  Brooks,  was  discovered  by  the  great 
preacher  studying  the  backs  of  the  many  books  on  the 
shelves  of  his  library,  and,  in  response  to  the  preacher's 
query,  "What  are  you  trying  to  find?"  answered,  "I  am 
seeking  to  discover  the  secret  of  your  power."  That 
secret  was  not  to  be  found  on  the  shelves  of  the  preach- 
er's library.  It  is  true  that  a  man  is  largely  known 
by  the  books  he  reads,  and  that  they  exercise  a  potent 
influence  in  shaping  and  moulding  his  life.  It  is  still 
more  true  that  the  secret  of  greatness  or  of  power  of 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  93 

any  kind  is  not  so  readily  disclosed.  Few  great  men 
have  ever  been  able  to  make  clear  to  their  admirers  the 
real  secret  of  their  strength  and  power.  Macaulay 
claimed  that  he  was  intellectually  reborn,  almost  in  a 
night,  by  the  reading  of  a  single  book.  Other  men  of 
genius  in  various  spheres  of  activity  have  discovered 
their  latent  qualities  through  contact  with  some  great 
personality.  It  was  Charles  Kingsley  who,  when  asked 
by  an  inquiring  woman,  "Tell  me,  what  is  the  secret  of 
your  genius?"  answered,  "I  had  a  friend." 

Some  men  rise  upon  the  horizon,  the  secret  of  whose 
greatness  it  is  difficult  to  discover,  because  it  has  its 
genesis  in  things  divine.  It  was  such  an  one  the  an- 
niversary of  whose  birth  we  recognized  during  the  past 
week.  There  was  little  that  was  uncommon  in  either 
the  environment  or  training  of  the  great  Washington. 
How  or  where  he  was  fitted  for  leadership  in  the  field 
or  in  the  forum  is  not  disclosed  even  by  his  best  biog- 
raphers. His  genius  as  a  leader  seems  to  be  revealed 
only  as  the  occasion  calls  it  forth.  From  the  earliest 
day  of  his  public  service  to  his  latest  hour,  he  stands 
supremely  forth  as  a  man  invested  with  almost  super- 
natural gifts.  It  is  little  wonder  that  the  greatest  of 
English  scholars  and  statesmen  recognized  in  him  a 
genius  so  incomparable  that  there  was  little  with  which 
to  compare  it  in  the  long  range  of  human  history.  One 
thing  is  conspicuous,  and  we  believe  it  to  be  in  part  the 
secret  of  his  extraordinary  power.  It  was  his  unchal- 
lenged and  unchallengeable  integrity  plus  a  purity  of  mo- 
tive that  proceeded  from  a  heart  and  mind  that  were 
without  bitterness,  rivalry  or  cunning  of  any  sort  or 
kind.  Verily  it  may  be  said  of  him  that  "his  strength 
was  as  the  strength  of  ten  because  his  heart  was  pure." 

As  a  Mason,  he  was  loyal  to  the  highest  ideals  for 


94  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

which  this  honorable  body  stands.  As  an  officer  and 
servant  of  the  church,  he  was  a  consistent  and  unfailing 
exemplar  of  its  noblest  principles  and  aims.  Even  the 
snows  of  Valley  Forge  afforded  him  an  altar  at  which 
to  worship,  and  from  it  he  went  forth  to  be  the  uncon- 
querable leader  of  an  ill-equipped  army,  and  one  of  the 
creators  of  one  of  the  greatest  states  the  world  has  ever 
known.  Like  Lincoln,  his  religious  faith  was  unre- 
stricted by  the  precise  forms  of  any  religious  body.  De- 
vout and  chivalrous  in  his  response  to  the  high  claims 
of  religion,  he  lived  a  life  that  in  its  every  aspect  was 
unchallenged  by  friend  and  foe  alike,  and  he  set  up  and 
maintained  an  ideal  of  integrity  and  high-minded  right- 
eousness that  has  rarely  if  ever  been  excelled  in  this  or 
any  other  land. 

During  these  days  much  has  been  said  concerning 
his  ideals  as  they  have  to  do  with  the  things  of  the 
state  and  the  relation  of  this  government  to  those  over- 
seas. Repeatedly  we  have  been  reminded  that  to  him 
"entangling  alliances"  were  dangerous  and  fraught  with 
gravest  perils.  Again  and  again  we  look  back  to  his 
majestic  figure  as  to  the  polar  star  of  the  Republic,  and 
by  it  we  seek  to  shape  our  present  course.  It  were  well 
at  such  a  time,  not  only  to  regard  with  high  reverence 
his  noble  character  and  simple  ways,  but  it  were  far 
better  to  seek  to  reproduce  in  our  age  and  generation 
some  of  those  great  qualities  that  made  him  a  master  of 
men.  The  call  of  our  time  is  for  righteous  leadership 
in  all  the  spheres  of  human  action,  and  it  is  of  little 
worth  that  we  extol  our  Washingtons  or  our  Lincolns 
unless  we  seek,  with  fine  sincerity,  to  reproduce  in  the 
life  of  our  day  those  qualities  that  made  them  great  and 
immortal. 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  95 


"LAUNCH  OUT  INTO  THE  DEEP" 

THE  above  caption  represents  a  word  of  admonition 
given  by  Jesus  to  His  disciple,  Simon  Peter.  The 
fisherman  had  evidently  had  poor  luck,  and  he,  with  his 
partners,  were  washing  the  nets.  Perhaps  with  some 
distrust  they  obeyed  the  Master's  command,  even  though 
their  night's  toil  had  brought  them  nothing.  The  nar- 
rative tells  us,  that  when  they  had  let  down  their  nets 
"They  enclosed  a  great  multitude  of  fishes,  and  they 
beckoned  unto  their  partners  that  they  should  come  and 
help  them." 

The  word  of  direction  and  encouragement  that  Jesus 
gave  is  worthy  of  our  deep  consideration.  Most  of  us 
keep  to  the  shallow  waters.  Perhaps  this  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  we  are  either  unskilled  or  else  fearful  of  ven- 
turing out  beyond  our  depth.  We  all  have  in  some  de- 
gree the  spirit  of  adventure,  but  very  often  either  our 
fears  or  our  doubts  keep  us  from  obeying  our  intuitions 
or  what  we  call  our  better  judgment,  with  the  result 
that  we  all  too  frequently  fail  of  large  accomplishment. 
We  remember  a  story  that  Dr.  Grenfell  told,  which  con- 
cerned a  schooner  wrecked  on  the  Labrador  reefs.  She 
had  encountered  a  gale  and  after  reefing  down  her  sails, 
her  skipper  had  endeavored  to  make  for  the  big,  open 
sea.  He  knew  full  well  that  an  on-shore  breeze  in  a 
hard  blow  was  dangerous,  but  he  took  the  chance  of 
clearing  the  reefs  too  late,  with  the  result  that  he  was 
caught  on  their  ragged  edges  and  his  ship  destroyed. 
Many  a  good  ship  has  been  lost  in  like  manner,  and 
may  we  not  also  say,  many  a  human  life  has  failed  of 
accomplishment  or  of  attaining  its  largest  objective,  be- 
cause the  skipper  has  been  too  conservative,  has  sailed 


96  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

too  close  to  the  shore,  and  when  the  crisis  came  it  was 
too  late  and  he  could  not  make  the  open  sea. 

This  has  large  application  to  the  things  of  our  com- 
mon, everyday  life.  We  do  not  think  that  reckless  dar- 
ing is  a  thing  to  be  desired.  On  the  other  hand,  we  do 
not  think  that  extreme  conservatism  or  fear  are  the 
elements  in  life  that  make  for  the  largest  success  and 
the  most  secure  results.  The  deep  waters  are  almost 
always  the  safe  waters.  Better  navigate  where  there  is 
plenty  of  water  than  in  a  seemingly  secure  harbor  whose 
restricted  limitations  afford  no  opportunity  for  either 
skill  or  large  adventure.  All  this  has  its  application 
to  everything  with  which  we  have  to  do,  but  it  has  a 
very  definite  application  to  our  religious  faith.  It  would 
sometimes  seem  that  most  of  us  were  disposed  to  seek 
what  one  might  call  a  safe  faith,  a  faith  that  calls  for  no 
large  exercise  of  the  imagination  or  of  the  will.  The 
waters  in  which  we  navigate  are  largely  determined  by 
the  limitations  of  our  own  particular  cult;  in  fact,  we 
seem  to  have  little  or  no  desire  to  know  the  foreign 
waters  that  lie  beyond  our  creed-locked  harbor,  with  the 
result  that  we  become  narrowed  and  restricted  in  our 
point  of  view,  as  well  as  insular  in  our  fellowships  and 
faith.  "Launch  out  into  the  deep,"  is  the  Master's  com- 
mand to  the  church  today.  We  can  also  hear  Him  say- 
ing to  the  troubled  disciples  when  their  little  boat  was 
threatened,  "Why  are  ye  so  fearful,  O  ye  of  little  faith?" 
The  world  is  calling  us  today  away  from  shallow  things 
to  the  deeper  things  of  life.  Perhaps  we  shall  be  com- 
pelled, even  against  our  wills,  to  launch  out  into  the  deep. 
Perhaps  old,  hoary  systems  that  we  thought  were  as  im- 
pregnable and  enduring  as  the  rock  of  Gibraltar  are  to 
be  shaken  to  their  foundations.  Perhaps,  who  knows, 
we  shall  have  to  revise  and  recast  many  of  our  old  judg- 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  97 

merits  and  systems,  religious,  social,  industrial  and  politi- 
cal. If  we  have  been  drifting  shoreward,  riding  near 
the  threatening  reefs,  with  an  on-shore  breeze  carrying 
us  on,  it  is  high  time  we  heard  the  clear  call  of  the 
world's  divine  Pilot  and  its  Master  Fisherman.  Of  one 
thing  we  are  sure,  that  the  deeper  waters  call  for  greater 
skill,  finer  imagination,  clearer  vision,  and  unquestion- 
ably and  always,  a  more  splendid  devotion. 

^1         ^        ^ 

VALUE  OF  INCONSPICUOUS  SERVICE 

**  TOHN  did  no  miracle."  These  are  the  days  of  large 
*J  things.  Terms  and  values  we  hardly  knew  the 
meaning  of  a  decade  ago  are  now  common  in  every  day 
speech.  Our  fathers  talked  in  terms  of  thousands.  Un- 
til recently,  we  talked  in  terms  of  millions,  but  today 
we  have  taken  a  step  forward  and  now  talk  in  terms  of 
billions.  Business  itself  is  using  a  new  terminology  and 
vast  combinations  in  industry  have,  in  part  at  least, 
displaced  the  smaller  enterprises  and  eliminated  com- 
petition. Even  the  League  of  Nations  is  a  further  ex- 
pression of  the  same  tendency. 

We  sometimes  wonder  whether  there  is  not  a  disposi- 
tion to  render  the  worth  of  the  individual  less  con- 
spicuous and  important.  While  the  weight  of  over  two 
million  American  youths,  thrown  into  the  scale  of  a 
world-war,  rendered  victory  possible,  let  us  not  lose 
sight  of  the  fact  that  it  was  the  integrity  and  courage 
of  the  individual  soldier,  that  In  the  last  analysis,  gave 
us  the  victory. 

We  cannot  all  be  miracle  workers ;  we  cannot  all  be 
"top-liners'*;  we  cannot  all  walk  in  thg  whit^  light  of 


98  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

publicity,  and  it  is  well  that  this  is  so.  Life  would  be 
an  unlivable  thing  if  all  men  were  geniuses,  for  even 
genius  has  its  peculiarities  and  weaknesses,  and  men 
like  Carlyle,  we  have  learned,  are  hard  to  live  with. 
What  we  need  to  realize  and  learn  just  now  is,  that 
it  is  the  man  or  woman  who  performs  no  miracles  but 
who  lives  his  or  her  life  with  fine  consistency,  high  in- 
tegrity, and  an  eye  single  to  the  common  good,  who  is 
really  worth  while.  We  cannot  get  on  without  officers 
to  lead  us,  but  officers  cannot  get  on  without  armies  to 
answer  their  commands. 

No  one  had  a  higher  appreciation  of  the  value  of  the 
individual  than  did  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  We  have  but  to 
turn  to  the  short  narrative  of  His  life  to  discover  that 
almost  all  His  great  utterances  were  to  individuals,  and 
that  they  were  spoken  in  the  by-ways  and  on  the  high- 
ways where  men  and  women  toiled.  It  was  said  of 
Him,  "He  knew  what  was  in  man,"  and  it  was  this 
Divine  knowledge  that  made  Him  the  incomparable 
Master  of  men. 

His  example  needs  to  be  reproduced  in  the  life  of 
the  Church  today.  There  are  multitudes  of  men  and 
women,  both  in  and  out  of  the  Church,  who  have  come 
to  feel  that  they  have  no  place  of  standing,  because 
they  can  perform  no  miracle,  either  in  the  matter  of 
service  or  that  of  giving.  The  very  bigness  of  modern 
undertakings  renders  their  service,  to  their  way  of  think- 
ing, both  inconspicuous  and  valueless.  This  is  a  mis- 
taken conception,  and  the  time  is  at  hand  for  the  larger 
recognition  of  the  value  of  humble  and  inconspicuous 
service.  The  Church,  society  and  industry  can  only 
function  through  the  "effectual  working  of  every  part." 

We  can  only  rise  to  a  position  of  usefulness  through 
the  clear  recognition  of  our  responsibilities  and  obliga- 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  99 

tions,  and  the  discharge  of  them  to  tKe  full  extent  of 
our  ability.  There  is  little  use  of  our  trying  to  work 
miracles  when  we  can  only  do  the  commonplace  thing, 
and  what  we  need  to  emphasize  today,  is  not  so  much 
the  value  of  the  unusual  as  the  commonplace.  We  read 
of  the  Baptist  that  "Jo^*^  ^^^  no  miracle."  But  this 
fact  did  not  hinder  him  in  being  the  way-preparer  for 
the  Miracle  Worker.  There  is  a  mighty  lesson  in  this 
for  everyone  of  us,  a  lesson  that  has  its  application  to 
every  form  of  our  individual  and  corporate  life. 

We  have  always  liked  that  word,  "Every  man  accord- 
ing to  his  ability." 

THE  MOTHER 

IN  AN  age  that  is  talking  much  of  new  methods  and 
new  schemes  for  the  conduct  of  life,  we  find  ourselves 
compelled  to  think  more  deeply  of  those  older  schemes 
and  methods  by  and  through  which  the  race  has  been 
brought  to  its  present  state  of  development.  Sometimes, 
as  we  read  our  magazines,  it  would  almost  seem  as  though 
the  future  were  to  be  determined  and  the  character  of 
the  people  fixed  through  mechanical  agencies,  designed 
to  work  with  mathematical  accuracy.  Again,  we  are  told 
that  we  are  to  be  regulated  and  controlled  by  committees, 
organizations,  laws  of  Congress  and  acts  of  Parliament. 
To  many  of  us  it  is  becoming  increasingly  clear  that  there 
are  certain  divinely  ordered  plans  that  are  as  unchanging 
as  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  that  are  vital  and  funda- 
mental to  the  security  of  the  nation,  the  state,  the  home 
and  the  individual.  We  were  brought  up  upon  the  max- 
im, "The  hand  that  rocks  the  cradle  rules  the  world," 


100 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

and  again  we  remember  hearing  another  old-fashioned 
saying,  "No  man  is  greater  than  his  mother." 

Sometimes  it  seems  to  us  that  our  age  has  forgotten 
some  of  these  older  aphorisms,  and  in  our  wild  passion 
for  change,  we  have  sought  for  new  methods  by  which 
to  train  the  youth  who  ultimately  must  govern  the  land. 
Schools  of  all  kinds,  societies  and  committees  of  every 
name,  may  make  their  small  contribution  to  the  refine- 
ment and  development  of  men  and  women.  But  when 
we  get  down  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  it  becomes  in- 
creasingly clear  that  the  most  vital  and  important  things 
of  life,  the  things  that  determine  character,  are  largely 
generated  and  made  effective  through  the  influence  of 
the  mother. 

No  one  can  think  of  great  Lincoln  without  thinking  of 
great  Nancy  Hanks.  No  one  can  understand  the  deep 
richness  of  the  life  of  the  two  greatest  prophets  this 
country  has  known,  Beecher  and  Brooks,  without  pene- 
trating into  the  life  of  their  homes  and  having  revealed 
the  human  power  that  made  them  what  they  were,  and 
that  power  resided  in  their  mothers. 

We  are  not  undervaluing  fathers  in  these  observations, 
but  when  it  comes  to  the  moulding  and  shaping  of  char- 
acters, it  is  clear  that  God  has  given  to  the  mother  the 
rare  genius  of  the  sculptor.  The  world  may  make  the 
man  of  affairs,  the  mother  makes  the  man  of  character. 
The  world  may  give  its  honors  to  the  genius,  the  true 
mother  inspires  the  genius  whom  it  honors.  The  best 
poem  Cowper  ever  wrote,  so  some  think,  was  inspired  on 
receiving  his  mother's  portrait. 

Years  ago,  we  were  visiting  a  man  of  great  influence 
and  power,  when,  picking  up  from  the  table  a  much  worn 
book,  he  said  to  us,  "Do  you  know  what  this  is?  This 
is  my  mother's  Bible."    There  was  a  touch  of  tenderness 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  101 

I 

in  his  voice  as  he  continued,  "I  am  trying  to  read  it 
through  her  eyes."  Here  was  a  man  approaching  old  age, 
who,  in  his  twilight  period,  was  turning  back  again  to 
the  early  days  and  living  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  oae 
from  whom  he  had  received  the  finest  qualities  in  his 
nature. 

There  passed  away  recently  in  this  city  an  old-fash- 
ioned mother.  She  had  been  the  wife  of  a  clergyman 
whose  unusual  gifts  had  called  him  to  many  fields.  She 
might  have  had  as  her  family  motto,  "Here  have  we  no 
continuing  city."  The  shifting  home  scenes  and  the  ever 
changing  environments,  coupled  with  the  arduous  and 
exacting  duties  that  fell  to  her  lot,  did  not  and  could  not 
impair  her  sense  of  devotion  to  her  household.  Wherever 
her  children  were,  was  home.  To  our  mind  she  typifies 
and  illustrates  that  which  is  the  supreme  need  of  our 
present  hour. 

Let  us  not  be  hoodwinked  in  this  age  of  reconstruction, 
by  those  modern  and  up-to-date  conceptions  of  life  that 
relegate  to  a  place  of  unimportance  the  mother  influence. 
No  diviner  task  has  God  ever  committed  to  His  children 
than  that  which  is  given  to  the  mother.  The  homeliness, 
as  well  as  the  homelikeness  of  those  early  scenes  in  the 
life  of  Jesus  Christ,  have  furnished  inspiration  not  only 
for  the  world's  finest  art  and  music,  but  the  greatest  hope 
and  refreshment  to  the  children  of  men.  Jesus  and  Mary 
— what  a  theme  for  the  poet,  the  painter,  the  musician 
and  the  preacher!  Yes,  what  a  theme  and  what  a  sub- 
lime example  for  every  home  throughout  the  world !  A 
single  sentence  out  of  the  brief  narrative  indicates  the 
sublimity  of  Mary's  love,  "She  kept  all  these  things  and 
treasured  them  in  her  heart."  God  give  us,  in  this  criti- 
cal age,  the  kind  of  mothers  whose  gifted  hearts  and 
minds  alone  determine  our  peace  and  security. 


102       EVERYDAY  RELIGION 


THE  BONDAGE  OF  FEAR 

**   A  LL  their  lifetime  subject  to  bondage  through  fear." 

Jl\-  Fear  paralyzes  initiative,  impairs  the  will,  renders 
ineffective  life's  service,  and  ultimately  results  in  bitter 
disappointment  and  defeat. 

Fear  is  one  of  the  crudest  taskmasters  that  ever  binds 
and  shackles  the  human  will.  Probably  most  of  the  fail- 
ures in  life  are  traceable  to  the  deadening  influence  of 
fear.  The  world's  great  pioneers,  its  map-makers,  its 
empire  builders,  its  great  inventors  and  its  finest  philos- 
ophers have  been  those  who  were  least  affected  by  fear. 

Just  now  we  need  in  our  lives  as  individuals  and  as  a 
people  that  which  dispels  fear  and  inspires  courage.  The 
singular  thing  about  fear  is,  that  it  is  largely  the  creature 
of  our  imagination.  We  conjure  up  ghosts  that  have 
no  real  substance,  and  like  Macbeth  at  the  banqwet,  our 
distorted  vision  sees  that  which  is  solely  the  creature  of 
our  disordered  minds.  Again  and  again  in  the  course 
of  life  when  a  crisis  is  past,  we  see  the  foolishness  of 
our  false  expectations  and  the  fallacy  of  our  unreasoned 
speculations  and  misgivings. 

How  many  of  us  today  are  filled  with  foreboding  fears 
concerning  the  disasters  that  are  to  come  to  the  world  as 
the  result  of  the  war !  Again,  how  many  of  us  are  seeing 
in  the  visions  of  the  night,  forms  that  terrify  and  rob  us 
of  our  sleep !  How  many  of  us  are  carrying  about  a  ver- 
itable Pandora's  box  tenanted  with  innumerable  ills  that 
seem  to  threaten  to  destroy  us!  H  the  physicians  could 
break  the  seal  of  confidence  imposed  upon  them,  they 
might  unfold  a  tale  to  us  of  our  individual  and  com- 
munity life  that  would  startle  us. 

Christian  people,  who  are  supposed  to  know  better  and 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  103 

to  believe  more  than  other  folk,  witness  to  the  malevolent 
influence  of  fear.  We  remember  that  Horace  Fletcher 
once  wrote  an  admirable  little  book  entitled,  "Forethought 
versus  Fearthought,"  and  as  we  recall  it,  he  disclosed  the 
process  by  which  he  had,  through  sheer  perseverance, 
overcome  in  himself  the  practice  of  anticipating,  through 
an  over-wrought  imagination,  the  things  that  were  un- 
toward and  forbidding. 

The  great  explorer,  Du  Chaillu,  had  to  literally  dis- 
cipline himself  in  the  habit  of  looking  hopefully  and  with- 
out fear  to  the  strange  and  hazardous  experiences  that 
lay  before  him  in  his  adventuresome  life. 

One  of  the  things  that  makes  the  life  of  Jesus  so  per- 
suasive and  winsome,  is  the  absence  of  all  concern  for 
self-comfort,  self-satisfaction  and  self-preservation,  and 
His  utter  and  complete  willingness  to  submit  Himself 
readily  and  gladly  to  every  task,  regardless  of  conse- 
quences. 

What  is  our  Christian  faith  doing  for  us  today?  What 
is  its  actual  value  as  disclosed  in  our  everyday  life?  Do 
we  really  believe  that  "God's  in  His  heaven,"  and  that 
ultimately  all  will  be  well  with  the  world  ?  Do  we  really 
believe  that  "His  purposes  will  ripen  fast,"  and  that 
presently  we  shall  be  the  witnesses  "of  a  new  heaven  and 
a  new  earth,  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness?"  Are  we 
a  Christian  or  a  pagan  nation?  Sometimes  it  would  al- 
most seem  that  we  believed  that  chance  and  not  a  just 
God  rules  in  the  affairs  of  men. 

It  was  not  so  with  the  fathers  of  our  republic.  A 
Continental  Congress  went  to  its  knees  in  prayer  before 
it  undertook  to  create  a  great  state.  A  Washington  knelt 
in  the  snows  of  Valley  Forj^e  before  he  went  forth  with 
his  ragged  troops  to  drive  from  these  shores  the  hirelings 
of  a  despotic  and  arrogant  foreign  master. 


104 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

We  believe,  come  what  may,  that  there  is  something 
more  than  might  that  ultimately  determines  the  issues  of 
men  and  of  nations,  and  if  we  did  not  believe  it,  we 
should  feel  that  life  was  utterly  chaotic,  without  form 
and  void. 

Let  us  rise  from  the  bondage  of  fear,  let  us  break  its 
shackles,  let  us  not  believe  that  right  is 

"Forever  on  the  scaffold, 
Wrong  forever  on  the  throne," 

but  let  us  believe  that  we  are  federated  with  those  divine 
forces  that  are  irresistible  and  unconquerable. 

^        ^        ^ 

THE  SAVING  REMNANT 

"■rpXCEPT  the  Lord  of  Hosts  had  left  us  a  very 
jUj  small  remnant,  we  should  have  been  as  Sodom." 
A  brilliant  modern  writer  has  in  one  of  his  books  a 
chapter  under  the  suggestive  title,  "A  Doctrine  of  Rem- 
nants," the  design  of  which  is,  to  indicate  how  large  a 
place  the  small  but  saving  remnants  occupy  in  human 
society. 

Few  passages  in  any  literature  are  more  suggestive 
of  this,  than  that  which  refers  to  Abraham  and  his  prayer 
for  the  saving  of  the  Cities  of  the  Plain.  Again  and 
again  in  his  appeal  to  God  against  their  destruction  he 
cries  out  for  divine  clemency,  if  peradventure  there  be 
found  within  the  cities  a  small  number  of  righteous  men. 
At  last,  his  search  failing,  he  pleads  for  recognition  of 
the  saving  remnant,  and  in  response  to  his  cry  the 
answer  comes  from  God  that  He  will  spare  them  if 
ten  righteous  men  be  found. 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 105 

We  need  just  now  to  have  spoken  to  us  a  word  of 
large  reassurance,  for  the  apostles  of  gloom  and  despair 
are  abroad  in  the  land.  There  seem  to  be  more  diagnos- 
ticians of  human  ills  than  there  are  maladies  to  cure,  and 
the  pessimists  have  largely  come  to  dominate  both  our 
thought  and  action.  In  politics,  in  religion,  in  society, 
and  in  every  sphere  of  life,  we  have  those  who  believe, 
not  only  that  the  whole  world  is  out  of  joint,  but  that 
it  is  utterly  and  hopelessly  beyond  repair. 

With  humility  let  us  admit,  that  the  sinfulness  of  man 
has  effected  results  that  stagger  and  bewilder  us,  but 
having  admitted  this,  let  us  not  believe  that  life  is  wholly 
and  irretrievably  bad.  We  have  thought  much  of  late  of 
those  lines: 

"There  is  so  much  good  in  the  worst  of  us 
And  so  much  bad  in  the  best  of  us 
That  it  hardly  behooves  any  of  us 
To  talk  about  the  rest  of  us." 

Here  we  are  reminded  of  the  classic  illustration  of  Diog- 
enes, seeking  at  high  noon  with  lantern  for  an  honest 
man,  but  fortunately  Diogenes  represents  the  eccentric 
and  abnormal  in  life. 

To  illustrate  the  point  of  the  saving  remnant,  we  make 
the  following  citations :  France,  at  the  beginning  of  this 
war,  seemed,  at  least  to  the  superficial  observer,  to  be 
near  the  breaking  point.  Witness  this  in  the  Caillaux 
trial,  with  all  its  offensive  and  repellant  characteristics. 
Who  would  have  believed  that  this  France  of  July,  1914, 
was  in  the  process  of  a  vast  and  incomparable  renovation 
of  its  life.  It  is  a  far  cry  from  the  France,  even  of  Na- 
poleon, to  the  France  of  the  present,  with  its  uncon- 
quered  and  unconquerable  armies. 

Witness  it  again  in  Great  Britain  that,  by  the  testimony 


106 EVERYDAY  RELIGION  

of  its  own  critics,  had  reached  the  dangerous  stage  of 
self-complacency,  self-sufficiency,  and  the  loss  of  much 
of  its  idealism  before  the  first  of  August,  1914.  What 
a  change  the  years  following  have  disclosed.  Great 
Britain  has  never  been  greater,  sounder,  yes,  or  more 
religiously  disposed,  than  in  the  present  hour.  She  has 
been  weighed  in  the  balances  and  she  has  not  been  found 
wanting.  The  saving  remnant  in  her  life  has  made  her 
supreme  on  the  seas  and  invincible  in  the  field.  All  this 
is  the  sure  testimony,  even  of  her  severest  critics. 

Repeatedly,  in  our  own  national  life  we  have  seemed 
to  come  dangerously  near  the  line  that  divides  cosmos 
from  chaos,  but  we  have  been  most  miraculously  re- 
newed and  our  national  household  secured  against  dis- 
solution. 

Already  there  are  signs  in  this  country  that  the  sixth 
day  of  April,  1917,  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  birthday  of 
the  nation's  soul.  Here  on  that  memorable  day  we  re- 
nounced our  materialistic  ideals,  we  forgot  our  pursuit 
of  wealth,  we  abandoned  our  avowed  purpose  to  be 
commercially  supreme  throughout  the  world,  and  we 
placed  our  standard  as  well  as  our  men  and  resources 
beside  those  of  the  powers  that  were  struggling  for  a 
reasonable  and  righteous  world  peace.  It  then  became 
evident  that  there  was  a  saving  remnant  in  American 
life,  and  that  the  men  who  had  hitherto  been  engrossed 
in  the  pursuit  of  dollars  could  and  would,  at  the  call  of 
their  Government,  sacrifice  all  for  a  great  spiritual  ideal. 

What  is  true  of  the  body  corporate  is  true  of  the  in- 
dividual. There  resides  in  every  nature,  however  hard- 
ened by  circumstance  or  misfortune,  a  saving  remnant 
of  good.  Let  it  once  be  recognized  and  empowered  and 
the  good  outweighs  the  bad  and  the  selfless  and  God- 
like become  supreme.    ]We  need  to  realize  this  now  as 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  107 

never  before.  We  need  the  encouragement  that  comes 
from  the  consciousness  of  the  saving  good  in  ourselves 
and  in  the  world.  If  hate  is  to  be  displaced  by  love,  if 
ignorance  is  to  be  over-ruled  by  clear-eyed  intelligence, 
if  war  is  to  give  way  to  permanent  peace,  if  a  better 
understanding  is  to  rule  the  fireside,  the  workroom,  the 
centers  of  society,  commerce,  and  even  the  secret  cham- 
bers of  diplomacy,  we  must  have  a  new  birth  of  con- 
fidence in  that  saving  remnant  in  human  nature,  that 
constitutes  at  once  the  source  of  its  power  and  the  main- 
spring of  its  hope. 

A  CHANGED  LIFE 

"/^NE  thing  I  know ;  whereas  I  was  blind,  now  I  see." 
v>/  This  is  the  statement  of  the  man  whom  Christ 
healed.  It  was  submitted  in  response  to  the  persistent 
inquiries  of  those  who  sought  to  discredit  the  miracle 
and  to  embarrass  the  recipient  of  Christ's  gift.  A  whole 
chapter  in  the  New  Testament  is  given  over  to  the  re- 
cital of  this  story,  implying  its  large  significance  and  im- 
portance. It  contains  the  testimony  of  a  man  who,  in 
the  face  of  all  contradictions,  is  conscious  of  a  great 
change  in  his  own  life,  and  in  the  power  of  this  con- 
sciousness is  irresistible.  It  is  a  striking  illustration  of 
what  repeatedly  takes  place  all  about  us  in  lives  that  are 
transformed  and  transfigured  by  a  power  beyond  man's 
comprehension.  The  late  William  James  wrote  an  ex- 
traordinary book,  entitled :  "Some  Varieties  of  Religious 
Experience,"  in  which  he  sought  to  illustrate  these  amaz- 
ing changes  that  are  constantly  being  effected  in  the  lives 
of  men  and  women.     Those  who  have  been  spiritually 


108  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 


and  morally  blind  have  suddenly  become  illuminated, 
and  the  whole  course  of  their  lives  radically  changed. 

The  term  "conversion"  is  not  as  frequently  heard  or 
as  popular  as  it  once  was,  but  it  nevertheless  describes 
an  experience  that  thousands  are  day  by  day  having 
and  that  in  its  far-reaching  results  defies  all  criticism, 
and  persists  in  the  face  of  all  obstacles.  Someone  once 
said,  "God  sleeps  in  the  stone,  dreams  in  the  animal  and 
wakes  in  the  man,"  and  conversion  might  very  properly 
be  described  as  the  awakening  of  the  God-consciousness. 
Mr.  Begbie,  in  a  striking  book  entitled  "Twice  Born 
Men,"  submits  evidences  of  this  redemptive  work  that 
are  utterly  incontrovertible.  We  sometimes  talk  about  the 
passing  of  the  age  of  miracles,  and  men  and  women  balk 
at  the  miraculous  elements  in  the  New  Testament,  but  is 
there  any  miracle  comparable  to  that  which  gives  un- 
failing evidence  of  a  changed  and  utterly  transformed 
life?  The  man  who  was  spiritually  blind  testifies, 
"Whereas  I  was  blind,  now  I  see,"  and  every  word  and 
action  of  his  life  gives  irrefutable  testimony  to  the 
change.  It  has  always  seemed  to  us  that  the  case  of 
Saul's  conversion  and  the  complete  turn-about  of  his  life 
was  a  far  greater  miracle  than  that  of  the  raising  of  the 
dead  Lazarus. 

The  striking  thing  about  conversion  is,  that  it  is  ac- 
companied with  a  power  that  is  so  remarkable  and  trans- 
forming that  it  frequently  renders  those  who  experience 
it  almost  supernatural  in  their  gifts  and  talents.  Again, 
it  takes  the  very  powers  that  have  been  exercised  for 
selfish  and  unworthy  ends,  and  uses  them  for  the  high 
purposes  of  ennobling  and  enriching  mankind.  In  the 
case  of  Saul,  the  persecutor  becomes  the  advocate,  the 
man  of  a  formal  religious  habit  becomes  the  mighty  pro- 
tagonist of  a  faith  that  invades  even  the  courts  of  the 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 109 

Caesars.  Again,  it  takes  a  man  who  is  only  fifty  per 
cent  efficient  and  renders  him  one  hundred  per  cent 
efficient.  Another  strange  and  incontrovertible  fact  is 
that  it  is  a  continuing  power,  as  was  illustrated  in  the  case 
of  the  great  evangelist.  Moody.  Phillips  Brooks  once 
said,  "The  life  of  full  completion  haunts  us  all.  We  feel 
the  thing  we  ought  to  be  beating  beneath  the  thing  we 
are."  To  experience  the  character-making,  life-renew- 
ing powers  that  flow  from  the  very  life  of  God  Himself 
is  man's  highest  privilege,  as  well  as  his  supremest  op- 
portunity in  this  world.  Whether  the  change  is  sudden 
and  spectacular,  or  gradual  and  persistent,  does  not  alter 
the  fact  that  there  is  the  God-like  in  all  of  us,  if  we  will 
but  recognize  it  and  give  it  its  opportunity  for  expres- 
sion. 

MISTAKEN  ZEAL 

"/Tp  HEY  have  a  zeal  of  God,  but  not  according  to 
A  knowledge."  The  war  overturned  certain  time- 
honored  conceptions  of  government.  The  Romanoffs, 
Hapsburgs  and  Hohenzollerns  incarnated  certain  con- 
ceptions or  ideals.  These  ideals  in  men's  minds  changed, 
— exit  czars  and  emperors.  This  same  titanic  struggle 
obliterated  racial  lines  and  annihilated  distances  so  far 
as  the  world's  peoples  were  concerned.  It  destroyed 
national  insularity  and  did  away  with  proud  isolation. 
Great  and  dissimilar  peoples  suddenly  coalesced  under 
the  compulsion  of  a  threatening  peril.  Again,  this 
great  world  struggle  gave  new  meanings  to  old  ideals 
or  conceptions  of  human  brotherhood;  interpreted  in  a 
larger  way  the  meaning  of  service;  put  a   fresh  and 


110  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

more  consistent  value  upon  our  obligations  as  keepers 
of  our  brothers,  and  established  finer  standards  of  judg- 
ment than  we  had  hitherto  known.  In  the  sphere  of 
religious  enterprise,  it  made  clearer  than  ever  before 
the  foolishness  of  divisions,  the  utter  wickedness  of 
clamorous  contentions  over  non-essentials,  unseated 
those  who  would  build  walls  and  partitions,  and  dis- 
paraged as  unworthy  of  confidence  and  esteem  those 
who  clung  tenaciously  to  party  passwords. 

A  further  stud)-^  of  war  results  discloses  the  actions  and 
reactions,  the  consistencies  and  inconsistencies  in  the 
great  workroom  of  industry,  with  all  the  resultant  unrest, 
struggle,  suspicion  and  needed  readjustment.  All  of 
these  are  but  the  symptoms  or  manifestations  of  a  world- 
wide malady  that,  for  a  generation  or  more  has  been  in 
process  of  development.  They  constitute  the  inevitable 
results  of  a  universal  distemper  that  has  affected  every 
race  and  class  of  people  the  world  over.  Surely  the  time 
has  arrived  when  we  should  begin  to  look  for  a  return  of 
sanity  and  fair  judgment  that  will  permit  of  the  re-estab- 
lishment of  reasonable  and  normal  conditions.  On  every 
hand  it  is  becoming  increasingly  evident  that  religion 
must  play  its  large  part  in  re-establishing  right  human 
relations.  Speaking  of  the  present  situation.  Colonel 
Henry  Watterson  recently  said,  "Democracy  is  a  side 
issue.  If  the  world  is  to  be  saved  after  the  war,  it  will 
be  saved  by  Christianity,  by  Jesus  Christ  and  Him  cru- 
cified." It  is  interesting  to  note  that  all  the  great  mar- 
shals who  commanded  in  the  field  during  the  war  were 
men  of  pronounced  and  fixed  religious  convictions.  The 
Church  at  large  is  and  must  continue  to  be  the  interpreter 
and  conserver  of  religion,  and  as  we  see  it  in  the  light  of 
present  conditions,  it  must  reaffirm,  if  it  is  to  be  a  factor 
in  the  present  age,  certain  old  and  fundamental  truths 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 111 

or  principles  of  living  that  it  has  largely  forgotten  or 
ignored. 

One  of  the  things  that  has  become  almost  an  obsession 
in  our  generation  has  been  what  we  call  "social  righteous- 
ness," Sometimes  it  is  called  by  the  popular  name,  "so- 
cial service."  It  would  seem  that  we  had  reached  the 
stage  where  we  were  all  occupied  and  concerned  about 
mass  effects  and  mass  results.  We  can  only  deal  with 
groups,  and  we  have  become  largely  incapable  of  dealing 
with  individuals.  In  this  we  have  reversed  the  method 
of  Jesus  Christ.  No  one  with  any  sanity  would  disparage 
the  efforts  after  social  righteousness  or  social  service, 
but  is  it  not  time  for  us  to  once  again  make  clear  the 
primary  and  imperative  need  of  individual  righteousness? 
There  are  a  good  many  people  engaged  in  social  better- 
ment of  one  kind  and  another,  who  apparently  have  for- 
gotten that  righteousness,  like  charity,  begins  at  home. 
We  have  employed  all  kinds  of  mechanisms  and  schemes 
to  compel  the  interest  of  those  who  are  indifferent  to  re- 
ligion, and  we  are  very  properly  rebuked  by  the  word  of 
the  British  soldier  who,  as  he  went  over  the  top,  said 
"It  is  all  right  to  entertain  me,  but  I  want  someone  to 
tell  me  how  to  die,"  and  he  might  have  added,  "and  how 
to  live."  Donald  Hankey  made  it  evident  that  the  in- 
articulate faith  of  the  Tommy  demanded  something  more 
clear  and  definite  in  the  way  of  a  program  for  individual 
and  daily  conduct.  Before  we  shall  begin  to  better  our 
condition,  social,  industrial  and  political,  we  shall  have 
to  return  to  the  old  idea  of  individual  righteousness  and 
individual  responsibility.  Statesmen  and  those  outside 
the  Church  are  beginning  to  realize  that  we  shall  not 
satisfactorily  rebuild  our  house  until  we  come  back  again 
to  a  personal  recognition  of  our  personal  responsibility  to 
God  and  to  man ;  in  other  words,  until  we  begin  to  see 


112 EVERYDAY  RELIGION        

clearly  again  that,  "except  the  Lord  build  the  house,  they 
labor  in  vain  that  build  it,  and  except  the  Lord  keep  the 
city,  the  watchman  waketh  but  in  vain." 

LOOKING  BACKWARD 

A  BRILLIANT  writer  many  years  ago  wrote  an  in- 
teresting volume  under  the  above  title,  in  which  he 
sought  to  indicate  how  future  generations  would  measure 
their  advance  by  studying  the  seeming  snail-like  progress 
of  preceding  ages.  When  Edward  Bellamy  wrote  his 
book  he  was  not  reckoning  with  such  an  age  as  that 
through  which  we  are  now  passing.  No  prophet  or 
statesman  could  have  foreseen  the  tremendous  develop- 
ments which  the  world  has  witnessed  in  the  past  four 
years,  and  doubtless  it  would  be  quite  as  impossible  for 
any  living  prophet  or  statesman  to  clearly  forecast  what 
is  to  be  in  the  period  that  lies  immediately  ahead. 

Too  many  of  us  measure  our  progress  by  looking  back- 
ward, we  register  our  gains  by  repeated  reference  to  our 
yesterdays.  It  is  a  good  thing  to  keep  a  diary,  but  it  is 
not  an  over-helpful  thing  to  live  too  much  in  its  soiled 
pages.  The  old  maxim  that,  "what  has  been  must  be,'"' 
has  arrested  human  progress,  paralyzed  enterprise  and 
halted  both  science  and  invention.  In  his  great  work  on 
science  and  religion,  the  late  Andrew  D.  White  indicates 
the  dark  periods  of  human  history  that  were  marked  by 
bigotry  and  superstition,  and  that  resulted  in  impeding 
both  the  thought  and  the  action  of  some  of  the  world's 
finest  geniuses. 

Happily,  these  days  have  long  since  passed,  but  it  is 
well  to  be  reminded  just  now  that  progress  is  determined, 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  113 

not  by  harking  back  to  the  things  of  tradition  or  by  not- 
ing over-closely  what  our  forebears  did.  Someone  once 
wrote  an  admirable  article  under  the  caption,  "Progress 
Through  Oblivion  of  the  Things  of  the  Past."  It  is  well 
to  be  proud  and  loyal  to  the  best  things  that  have  marked 
our  advance,  but  it  is  unwise  to  feel  that  somehow  the 
whole  universe  must  be  shackled  to  a  hitching  post.  Too 
many  of  us  are  like  David  Harum's  horse,  "we  stand 
without  hitching,"  and  we  are  too  easily  satisfied  with 
the  "let  well  enough  alone"  policy.  Unfortunately,  this 
is  too  frequently  true  of  our  youth.  They  study  too 
much  and  follow  too  closely  the  lines  of  least  resistance. 

We  are  making  history  today  by  looking  forward  and 
not  backward.  It  is  wonderful  when  we  come  to  study 
closely  His  life,  how  forward-looking  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
was.  Unlike  all  other  religious  teachers,  He  was  ever 
seeking  to  project  the  world's  vision  into  the  new  day 
and  to  compel  it  to  recognize  the  opportunities  of  a  hope- 
ful and  promising  tomorrow.  Even  in  dealing  with  the 
worst  forms  of  human  sin,  He  looked  forward  and  not 
backward.  If  a  vice  had  shackled  and  bound  some  weak 
and  erring  mortal  and  if  condemnation  for  the  sins  of  the 
past  had  closed  the  gateway  to  a  better  and  triumphant 
future.  He  declared  in  hopeful  words  the  pardon  that 
broke  the  shackles  and  opened  the  door: — "Neither  do  I 
condemn  thee ;  go  and  sin  no  more." 

We  shall  not  make  progress  by  talking  over-much  of 
the  "good  old  days"  or  by  too  frequent  reference  to  the 
superlative  qualities  of  those  who  have  gone  before. 
Just  now  this  old  world  needs  the  strong  tonic  of  a  ra- 
tional optimism  and  a  reasonable  hope.  For  a  long  time 
to  come  we  shall  talk  over-much  of  what  was  "before 
the  war"  and  it  will  hinder  us  in  accomplishing  what 
must  be  "after  the  war."    We  need  in  every  department 


114 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

of  our  life  what  President  Wilson  calls  "forward-look- 
ing" men  and  women. 

Christianity  in  its  highest  conception  is  essentially 
optimistic  in  tone.  The  Gospel  is  not  a  book  of  "Don'ts." 
We  are  not  moving  into  a  future  over  whose  archway  is 
the  legend,  "They  leave  all  hope  behind  who  enter  here" ; 
we  believe  we  are  entering  a  future  that  is  to  bring  the 
whole  race  of  mankind  to  saner  and  more  Christian,  and 
hence,  higher  levels  of  thinking  and  living. 

WAYFARERS 

<*  A  WAYFARING  man  in  the  street  of  the  city." 
S\  Someone  has  well  said  that  the  loneliest  spot  in 
the  world  is  the  crowded  street  of  a  great  city.  To  the 
man  or  woman  unrelated  to  its  vast  enterprise  or  its 
throbbing  life,  the  city  presents  at  once  a  problem  and  an 
opportunity.  It  is  an  unsolvable  problem  to  him  who 
lacks  definiteness  of  objective  and  fixity  of  conviction, 
an  opportunity  to  him  who  willingly  and  gladly  fits  into 
its  life  and  becomes  a  contributor  to  its  beneficent  pur- 
poses. 

A  wayfarer  is  one  who  fares  by  the  way,  whose  life 
aim  and  purpose  is  not  clearly  defined  to  his  own  con- 
sciousness, who  lives  from  day  to  day  without  the  sense 
of  being  a  part  of  life's  great  scheme,  whose  thought  is 
to  satisfy  his  selfish  appetites,  who  enjoys  the  vain  and 
ephemeral  life  of  the  passing  hour.  True,  there  are  those 
upon  the  city  street  who  seem  to  be  the  victims  of  for- 
tuitous circumstances,  whose  will  power  has  been  broken 
upon  the  hard  wheel  of  fortune ;  but  even  these  wayfarers 
if  once  their  wills  are  re-enforced  and  their  vision  ot 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  115 


life's  purpose  made  clear  are  capable  of  better  things. 
Such  wayfarers  call  for  and  demand  our  deepest  sym- 
pathy and  our  unfailing  help. 

We  are  not  thinking  of  these  so  much  as  that  other 
kind,  still  more  common,  who  lack  both  will  and  ambition 
and  whose  desultory  habits  lead  them  ultimately  to 
failure  and  defeat.  From  the  youth  emerging  from 
the  classroom  down  through  all  the  stages  of  life  to  old 
age,  it  is  the  desultory,  carefree,  selfishly  indifferent  ones 
who  retard  the  wheels  of  progress,  hinder  all  forms  of 
beneficent  enterprise  and  cumber  the  highways  with  the 
wrecks  of  mis-spent  lives. 

Too  many  of  these  wayfarers  fail  to  get  initiative  and 
inspiration  as  well  as  clear  direction  in  their  homes  and 
classrooms.  They  live  without  time-tables  and  their  des- 
tinations are  matters  of  supreme  indifference.  It  is  be- 
coming increasingly  clear  today  that  the  smallest  or  larg- 
est measure  of  success  is  attained  alone  by  him  who  lives 
his  life  with  a  definite  plan  in  view.  It  is  not  merely  a 
question  of  square  pegs  in  round  holes,  it  is  as  well  a 
question  of  strength  of  will,  determination  of  purpose 
and  definiteness  of  aim. 

All  this  has  its  application  in  a  large  way  to  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  things  of  character.  We  have  been  living  in  an 
age  that  has  laid  much  stress  upon  so-called  "breadth  of 
view,"  but  as  John  Mott  has  well  said,  what  we  need 
today  is  "length  of  view" — a  penetrative  vision.  In  other 
words,  a  wayfarer  in  the  things  of  religion  who  rather 
rejoices  in  his  "free-lance  life"  becomes  ultimately  in- 
different to  all  religious  convictions  and  immune  to  both 
its  inspirations  and  impulses. 

The  wayfarer  type  is  mighty  common  these  days,  and 
the  church  tramp,  who  for  lack  of  conviction  or  willing- 
ness to  co-operate  with  his  fellows  in  a  well  conceived 


116  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

system  of  moral  and  religious  training,  is  a  familiar  ob- 
ject. It  is  this  unhelping,  uninspiring,  purposeless  type 
that  makes  no  contribution  to  those  agencies  that  are 
designed  for  the  enrichment  of  life  here  and  the  promo- 
tion of  life  hereafter.  Conceits  and  prejudices  as  well 
as  selfish  and  self-seeking  satisfactions  have  largely  to 
do  with  generating  these  wayfaring  impulses. 

The  Son  of  God,  from  His  declaration  as  a  child  in  the 
temple,  "Know  ye  not  that  I  must  be  about  My  Father's 
business,"  up  to  his  latest  hour  when  "He  set  His  face 
to  go  up  to  Jerusalem"  to  meet  crucifixion,  lived  a  life 
with  a  supreme  end  in  view,  and  today  the  world  ac- 
claims Him  the  Son  of  Man,  its  highest  symbol  of  life, 
because  He  dared  to  follow  His  plan  even  though  at  the 
end  of  the  way  He  saw  a  lonely  cross.  For  present  world 
living  as  well  as  future  world  assurance,  we  must  aban- 
don the  wayfaring  habit. 

IS  THE  CHURCH  AFRAID? 

ONE  of  the  outstanding  characteristics  of  the  Old 
Testament  is  the  heroism  of  its  great  teachers. 
There  were  statesmen-prophets  in  those  days  and  they 
were  not  afraid  of  the  face  of  man.  They  dealt  with 
sin,  individual  and  corporate,  frankly  and  fairly,  and 
while  they  did  not  render  themselves  m.ore  popular  in 
so  doing,  they  won  a  distinct  place  of  leadership  and 
power. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  to  note  that  many  of  the  great 
religious  leaders  of  the  world  have  first  been  martyred 
and  then  canonized.  Savonarola  is  an  outstanding  ex- 
ample.   When  he  began  his  preaching  in  Florence,  they 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  117 

despised  him,  until  at  length,  so  powerful  were  his  ut- 
terances and  so  forceful  his  denunciations,  that  he  be- 
came for  the  while  the  master  of  the  state.  True,  they 
ultimately  burned  him  in  the  Piazza,  but  his  name  and 
fame  have  outlived  that  of  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent,  and 
no  spot  in  Florence  is  more  revered  than  that  whereon  he 
stood  as  a  martyr.  Some  time  ago  a  secular  paper  had 
an  editorial  entitled,  "The  Preacher  for  an  Age  of  Sin," 
in  which  the  writer  clamored  for  a  revival  of  the  fearless 
and  informed  utterance  of  the  prophet  of  old.  One  of 
the  most  popular  American  authors,  Winston  Churchill, 
in  his  book,  "The  Inside  of  the  Cup,"  accuses  the  Church 
of  cowardice  in  dealing  with  certain  conspicuous  and 
glaring  modern  social  and  industrial  conditions. 

We  think  he  overdrew  the  picture  and  mis-stated  the 
fact,  when  he  declared  that  the  Church  is  dominated  by 
men  of  wealth.  Our  observation  leads  us  to  the  con- 
viction that  the  outstanding  men  in  the  pulpits  of  America 
today  are  declaring  fearlessly  and  without  favor  their 
convictions,  up  to  the  limit  of  their  knowledge.  It  is  not 
so  much  a  question  of  the  Church  being  afraid,  as  it  is 
of  the  Church  being  uninformed.  Mr.  Churchill  is  right 
in  this.  The  Church  must  have  an  informed  and  con- 
vincing message  on  the  mighty  questions  of  the  hour. 
Some  one  has  said :  "There  is  one  way  to  reach  the  con- 
sciences of  sinners  in  high  places,  and  that  is  to  quicken 
and  give  utterance  to  the  social  conscience.  Just  this  is 
the  prime  function  of  the  Church,  the  quickening  and  ut- 
terance of  the  conscience  of  society."  Probably  much 
of  the  failure  of  the  church  to  effect  this  is  due  to  its 
tendency  to  be  "other-worldly."  Jesus  preached  a  Gospel 
for  the  present,  and  there  can  be  no  mistaking  the  fact 
that  he  dealt  with  human  conditions  as  he  found  them 
and  sought  to  better  them.     There  can  be  no  question 


118 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

that  the  church  must  deal  more  fearlessly  than  it  has  with 
human  ills,  in  whatever  form  they  may  disclose  them- 
selves. We  do  not  believe,  take  it  by  and  large,  that  it 
is  afraid,  although  it  may  be  timid.  We  do  not  believe 
that  its  ministry  is  chargeable  with  cowardice. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  do  believe  that  clergy  and  peo- 
ple alike  must  be  re-inspired  by  the  fearless  attitude  of 
Jesus  Christ.  It  was  James  Russell  Lowell,  I  think,  who 
said :  "There  is  enough  dynamite  in  the  New  Testament 
to  destroy  all  our  existing  social  institutions."  And  yet 
Jesus  said :  *T  came  not  to  destroy  but  to  fulfill."  It  is 
obvious  that  he  came  to  destroy  that  which  was  evil  and 
to  restore  that  which  was  good.  His  whole  ministry 
was  given  over  to  bettering  human  conditions,  and  of 
Him  it  was  said :  "He  went  about  doing  good."  There 
are  glaring  and  conspicuous  sins  that  go  unrebuked,  and 
sometimes  it  would  almost  seem  that  the  people  "love  to 
have  it  so,"  but  now  is  the  time  for  plain  speaking,  and 
it  is  our  unfailing  conviction  that  the  great  mass  of  the 
people  in  and  out  of  the  churches  are  ready  to  hail  with 
delight,  either  the  prophet  or  the  Christian  layman  who 
will,  with  high  conscience,  clear  vision  and  unfailing 
courage,  attack  and  seek  to  uproot  the  entrenched  evils 
of  the  hour. 

"Ye  shall  not  be  afraid  of  the  face  of  man,  for  the 
judgment  is  God's." 

>?«?»? 
THE  POWER  OF  A  GREAT  CONVICTION 

WRITING  of  his  own  conviction  concerning  his  mis- 
sion, St.  Paul  declares:  "This  one  thing  I  do," 
and  then  he  indicates  that  it  was,  to  rise  in  some  measure, 
to  the  perfection  of  the  character  of  his  Master.   What 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  119 

a  magnificent  thing  it  is  to  see  clearly  the  purpose  of 
life,  to  realize  its  great  objective,  and  then  to  commit 
all  our  energies  and  powers  to  its  accomplishment !  Ad- 
miral Togo,  of  the  Japanese  navy,  wrote  to  his  Em- 
peror when  he  had  determined  as  his  unfailing  purpose 
the  destruction  of  the  enemy's  fleet:  "After  a  thousand 
changing  thoughts,  one  fixed  purpose."  Every  man  who 
has  become  a  master  of  his  profession  or  occupation 
has  disclosed  this  power  of  a  great  conviction.  He  has 
seen  the  end  from  the  beginning,  and  in  the  face  of 
every  hindrance  and  obstacle  has  pressed  on.  Blind- 
ness could  not  hinder  John  Milton's  vision  of  Paradise, 
nor  could  Bedford  jail  restrain  the  mighty  soul  of 
Bunyan,  nor  could  the  hooting  mobs  deter  the  persever- 
ing and  consecrated  John  Wesley.  Lying  on  his  back 
for  weeks  under  the  arches  of  the  Sistine  Chapel, 
Michael  Angelo,  with  flaming  genius,  and  unwearied 
brush,  revealed  to  future  generations  his  marvelous  con- 
ceptions of  truth  and  beauty.  With  but  one  purpose 
before  him,  Grant  prosecuted  his  difficult  tasks,  where 
every  other  man  had  failed,  until  the  climax  came  at 
Appomattox,  and  a  divided  nation  was  re-united  and 
re-born.  Disraeli,  with  a  conception  of  his  high  purpose, 
declared  to  a  jeering  parliament  that  would  not  heed  him : 
"You  will  not  hear  me  now,  but  the  time  will  come  when 
you  will  hear  me."  The  most  perfect  example  of  all 
this  is  to  be  found  in  the  great  Master  of  men,  who, 
even  in  the  face  of  the  disciples'  warning,  "set  his 
face  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem."  No  cross  can  mark  the 
failure  of  such  a  life.  It  is  rather  the  witness  to  its 
complete  fulfilment.  He  alone  could  say,  even  in  the 
face  of  his  persecutors,  as  He  viewed  a  consummated 
salvation:  "It  is  finished." 
Purposeless  living  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  gam- 


120  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

bling  with  life.  It  is  like  "taking  chances"  or  "playing 
with  fate."  Purposeful  living  is  efficient  living.  It  is 
reckoning  not  only  with  our  capacities  and  abilities,  but 
with  the  sure  guidance  and  direction  of  Almighty  God. 
What  a  miserable  thing  it  is,  to  go  to  one's  office  day 
after  day  with  no  higher  aim  than  to  make  a  living. 
What  a  fascinating  thing  it  is  to  go  to  one's  task,  how- 
ever great  or  small,  with  the  consciousness  that  it  is  part 
of  a  well-defined  plan,  that  has  as  its  end  a  fixed  and 
definite  purpose,  and  a  purpose,  be  it  said,  that  makes 
for  happiness  to  others  and  satisfaction  to  ourselves. 
The  great  question  we  ask  concerning  the  life  of  every 
student  as  he  emerges  from  the  classroom,  is:  "What 
will  he  do  with  it?"  And  no  greater  question  ever  con- 
fronts a  man  or  woman  than  this  one:  "What  is  to 
be  the  purpose  of  my  life?"  Once  determined,  the 
whole  course  is  prescribed,  the  machinery  set  in  motion, 
and  the  object  rendered  clear.  Some  one  says,  "we  are 
put  here  to  grow  a  soul."  This  in  itself  is  a  great  pur- 
pose, but  in  growing  our  own  soul,  let  us  see  to  it  that 
every  other  soul  about  us  is  uplifted  and  ennobled. 

AN  EXPECTANT  WORLD 

**^TpHE  earnest  expectation  of  the  creature  waiteth 
A  for  the  manifestation  of  the  sons  of  God."  The 
search  for  life's  maximum  is  here  expressed.  From 
the  dawn  of  history  to  the  latest  hour,  the  world 
has  been  waiting  for  the  larger  expression  of  the 
God-like  in  man.  Doubtless  each  age  has  had  its  own 
standard  and  has  fixed  its  own  ideal  of  its  super-man. 
Frequently  the  maximum  has  been  disclosed  in  some 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 121 

human  life  that  has  sprung  out  of  seemingly  rank  and 
common  soil.  The  patents  of  royalty  are  not  conferred 
by  human  hands  and  the  purple  and  ermine  are  worn 
by  those  who  do  not  live  in  king's  houses.  Neither 
wealth  nor  trappings  of  splendor  are  essential  to  the 
man  or  woman  who  comes  carrying  credentials  divinely 
given.  It  was  a  great  observer  who  said :  "God  writes 
a  letter  of  credit  on  some  men's  faces  which  is  honored 
wherever  presented." 

Subtract  from  the  records  of  history  the  names  of 
these  God-gifted  men  and  women  who  have  come  bear- 
ing their  messages  to  humanity  and  we  impoverish  the 
world's  galleries  and  libraries;  we  strike  from  its  halls 
of  learning  and  laboratories  the  achievements  of  their 
most  gifted  sons;  we  take  from  the  fields  of  heroic 
action  and  the  halls  of  debate  those  leaders  that  have 
stirred  the  imagination,  aroused  the  enthusiasm,  and 
fired  with  valor  to  heroic  deeds  their  fellows.  We  have 
but  to  think  of  Milton,  Bunyan  and  Burns  in  literature, 
of  Wesley,  Whitfield  and  Brooks  in  the  realm  of  relig- 
ion, of  Washington  and  Lincoln  in  the  inspired  direc- 
tion and  control  of  a  nation,  to  find  examples  of  those 
who  have  fulfilled  the  supreme  expectations  of  their 
fellows. 

We  are  talking  much  to-day  about  the  age  that  lies 
ahead.  We  are  thinking  in  new  terms  of  a  world  in 
which  human  relations  shall  be  fairer,  more  equitable 
and  just.  We  are  hoping  and  praying  that  out  of  the 
storm  that  has  devastated  nations  is  to  come  an  era 
when  wars  shall  be  no  more.  The  whole  world  to-day 
is  full  of  great  expectations.  To  the  unthinking  and 
superficial  these  mighty  changes  are  to  come  without 
sacrificing  service,  simply  because  they  wish  them  to  be. 
We  may  never  dissociate  ideals  or  high  conceptions  of 


122 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

life  from  personality.  Ideals  and  ideas  are  born  into 
this  world  in  men  and  women  whom  God  Almighty  has 
empowered. 

The  world's  supreme  need  to-day  is  leadership,  not 
leadership  usurped,  or  conferred  by  human  authority, 
but  leadership  that  bears  the  hall-mark  of  a  divine 
sanction.  Let  us  not  think  that  this  new  kind  of  leader- 
ship resides  alone  with  those  who  bear  the  marks  of 
greatness.  The  leadership  of  our  time,  and  the  only 
effective  kind  of  leadership  for  such  an  age,  is  that  which 
discloses  itself  in  the  average  man  or  woman.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  earnest  expectation  of  our  time  is 
not  for  isolated  examples  of  leadership,  but  for  that 
commoner  type  that  manifests  itself  in  all  the  common 
relationships  of  life.  To  each  man  and  woman  comes 
the  eloquent  word  of  those  who  died  that  we  might  live : 

"To  y©u  from  falling  hands  we  throw  the  torch, 
Be  yours  to  hold  it  high : 
If  ye  break  faith  with  us  who  die. 
We  shall  not  sleep,  though  poppies  grow 
In  Flanders'  fields." 

The  man  or  woman  today  who  is  without  the  con- 
sciousness of  responsibility  in  the  new  order  and  scheme 
of  human  life,  is  breaking  faith  with  those  who  died  in 
Flanders'  fields.  To  live  carelessly,  thoughtlessly  or 
selfishly  at  such  a  time  as  the  present  is  to  commit 
treason  against  one's  fellows. 

The  old  ideals  have  been  displaced  by  the  new,  and 
the  world  is  waiting  to  be  re-born,  and  it  will  be  the 
kind  of  a  world  that  we  make  it,  and  its  form  and  char- 
acter will  be  determined  solely  by  the  kind  of  leadership 
we  bring  to  it. 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  123 


MORALITY  OR  RELIGION? 

THE  ancient  Hebrew  poet  declared:  "To  him  that 
disposeth  his  way  aright  shall  be  shown  the  salvation 
of  God." 

Matthew  Arnold  maintained  that  conduct  is  three- 
fourths  of  life.  If  this  be  true,  there  is  a  supreme  need 
of  some  definite  regulation  of  it.  The  world  has  tried 
many  plans  or  systems.  In  an  early  day  the  great 
thinkers  of  Greece  and  Rome  undertook  to  prepare  cer- 
tain rules  and  regulations  for  the  government  of  human 
conduct  in  private  and  public  life.  One  of  the  most 
faultless  of  these  is  known  as  the  "Ethics  of  Mar- 
cus Aurelius,"  the  great  Stoic  philosopher.  We  remem- 
ber a  man  of  marked  ability  who  came  to  us  once  and, 
laying  the  above  named  book  on  our  table,  said:  "I 
have  tried  to  follow  this  as  a  sort  of  Bible,  but  I  have 
reached  the  conclusion  that  it  is  inadequate:  it  is  very 
beautiful  but  it  has  no  heart  element  in  it."  We  think 
he  made  a  fine  distinction  between  a  human  system  and 
a  divine  plan. 

Morality  as  a  system,  with  all  its  splendid  schemes  for 
human  conduct,  has  never  effected  a  perfect  society, 
although  it  has  now  and  again  developed  men  and  wo- 
men of  rare  qualities.  Sometimes  it  seems  to  be  dif- 
ficult  to  distinguish  between  morality  and  religion.  To 
quote  Matthew  Arnold  again:  "Religion  is  morality 
touched  by  emotion."  In  other  words,  it  is  morality 
with  a  heart  element  in  it.  We  have  sometimes  thought 
that  morality  is  a  human  standard  of  goodness  set  as  an 
ideal  of  life,  while  religion  is  a  divine  standard  of 
■goodness  plus  the  power  to  effect  it.  Again,  we  have 
conceived  of  morality  as  a  finely  conceived  machine, 


124 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

faultlessly  constructed,  but  minus  power,  while  religion 
is  a  principle  of  life  plus  energy.  Morality  is  goodness 
through  human  agencies;  religion  is  goodness  through 
divine  influence  and  assistance.  Said  Dr.  Royce  of  Har- 
vard: "Ethical  teachings  direct  us  to  a  better  mode 
of  life;  religion  undertakes  to  lead  us  to  a  home-land 
where  we  may  witness,  and,  if  we  are  successful,  may 
share  some  supreme  fulfilment  of  the  purpose  for  which 
we  live." 

Religion  may  have  many  forms  and  be  expressed 
through  many  voices,  but  it  is  coming  more  and  more 
to  be  demonstrated  that  it  is  an  indispensable  requisite 
in  our  individual  and  corporate  life.  France  in  the 
heat  of  the  French  Revolution,  by  act  of  its  Parliament, 
sought  to  abolish  God,  but  a  wise  leader  of  the  time  said 
that  if  God  were  displaced  today  it  would  be  necessary 
to  invent  a  new  God  tomorrow,  because  of  the  demand 
of  the  people.  The  Jewish  nation  made  a  tremendous 
contribution  to  the  world's  betterment  through  its 
prophets  and  teachers.  While  Greece  was  living  upon 
the  fair  stones  of  its  philosophy,  Israel  was  living  upon 
the  bread  of  its  revealed  religion.  Greece  has  lost  its 
place  in  the  world,  but  the  Jewish  religion,  in  one  form 
or  another,  has  permeated  the  world's  life  and  mightily 
influenced  its  civilization.  Just  now  we  need  to  be 
definitely  advised  that  religion  is  the  need  of  the  hour. 

SELF-IDENTIFICATION 

^'TXrHOSE    art    thou?    and    whither    goest    thou?" 
W   When  great  issues  are  sharply  defined  and  mo- 
mentous concerns  that  have  to  do  with  the  most  vital 
things  of  human  life  are  at  stake,  this  clarion-like  chal- 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 125 

lenge  rings  out  along  the  sentry  lines  that  divide  armies 
and  parties  from  each  other.  In  the  ordinary  habits  of 
commonplace  living  we  seem  to  find  little  occasion  for 
defining  to  our  own  consciousness  to  what  systems,  or- 
ganizations or  principles  we  are  committed.  It  is  al- 
ways easier  to  assume  a  middle-of-the-road  course  than 
to  pursue  definitely  that  which  calls  for  deep  thinking 
and  possibly  large  sacrifice.  The  enthusiastic  followers 
of  a  cause  are  not  overnumerous  and  propagandists, 
while  noisy  and  intense,  are  few  in  number.  Today, 
however,  new  issues  are  coming  to  the  fore  and  new 
principles  are  clamoring  for  recognition,  and  the  demand 
is  upon  us  to  declare  more  definitely  whose  we  are  and 
what  our  tendencies. 

In  Bunyan's  immortal  allegory  he  speaks  of  "Mr. 
Ready-to-halt"  and  "Mr.  Dare-notly"  as  illustrating  cer- 
tain clearly  defined  characteristics  that  all  too  frequently 
find  their  embodiment  in  personalities.  These  qualities 
are  very  largely  matters  of  inheritance ;  we  get,  in  part 
at  least,  our  point  of  view  from  the  environing  influences 
of  our  early  life.  Today,  this  point  of  view  demxands 
re-examination,  and  we  must  determine,  each  one  for 
himself,  the  ideals  or  principles  which  call  for  unfailing 
loyalty  and  service.  In  other  words,  we  of  America  are 
required  to  stand  definitely  and  loyally  for  those  funda- 
mental ideals  upon  which  the  very  security  of  our  na- 
tional life  is  founded.  To  identify  ourselves  positively 
and,  if  need  be,  conspicuously,  with  those  principles  or 
institutions  that  are  essentially  American,  and,  hence, 
vital  to  our  very  existence,  is  imperative.  There  is  no 
ground  for  the  neutral  or  the  indifferent  today.  We 
must  either  be  for  or  against  the  principles  that  under- 
lie and  secure  our  very  national  being. 

We,   doubtless,   need   much  house   cleaning,  and   we 


126 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

shall  have  it,  but  let  this  house  cleaning  be  undertaken 
by  those  who  are  loyally  devoted  to  our  flag  and  nation. 
Let  us  be  clear  that  no  imported  systems  are  to  be  ac- 
cepted or  tolerated  in  this  hour  of  large  readjustment. 
Let  us  further  be  admonished  that  loyalty  to  national 
ideals  transcends  loyalty  to  party  organization.  In  our 
enthusiasm  for  participation  in  world  politics  and  world 
commerce,  let  us  remember  that  our  first  and  foremost 
obligation  is  to  our  own  land  and  people. 

Theodore  Roosevelt  was  right  when  he  declared 
that  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  "fifty-fifty  loyalty." 

The  same  may  be  said  of  our  devotion  to  religious 
ideals.  If  the  church  has  failed  to  function  as  it  should 
or  if  so-called  Christian  people  have  given  false  interpre- 
tations of  religion  because  of  their  un-Christian  prose- 
cution of  self-interests,  or  their  failure  to  emphasize  the 
essential  relation  between  faith  and  practice,  it  is  high 
time  they  were  reminded  that  here  again  a  fifty-fifty 
loyalty  to  the  ideals  of  religion,  as  those  ideals  are  re- 
lated to  every  human  interest,  is  impossible. 

We  claim  to  be  a  Christian  nation  and  the  supreme 
court  of  the  United  States  has  confirmed  this  judgment. 
If  this  be  so,  let  us  prove  it  by  our  devotion  to  those 
principles  enunciated  by  the  Carpenter  of  Nazareth  that 
are  fundamental  to  the  security  of  our  homes,  our  in- 
stitutions, our  industries  and  our  government. 

^         ^         ^ 

RESTRICTED  BOUNDARIES 

**T7DOM  refused  to  give  Israel  passage  through  his 
XL  borders."  In  the  long  and  difficult  pilgrimage  from 
Egypt  to  the  new  Land  of  Promise,  the  children  of  Is- 
rael had  come  to  the  border  of  the  little  but  self-con- 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  127 

tained  country  of  Edom.  A  request  had  been  made  upon 
the  king  of  Edom  to  permit  the  IsraeHtes  to  make  a  short 
cut  through  his  country  over  the  King's  Highway,  that 
would  bring  them  directly  to  their  objective.  In  applying 
for  this  privilege  every  safeguard  was  to  be  guaranteed 
and  reparation  made  for  any  damage  done.  Promptly, 
the  king  of  Edom  refused  permission  and  placed  a 
guard 'Upon  his  frontier,  compelling  the  tired  pilgrims  to 
retrace  their  steps  and  by  a  long  and  circuitous  course  to 
reach  the  country  whither  they  were  bound. 

Belgium  refused  Germany  passage  through  its  borders 
and  valiantly  held  the  vast  army  tat  bay  and  in  doing 
so  actually  saved  France  from  defeat  and  civilization 
from  Teutonic  dominance.  On  the  other  hand,  America 
forced  a  passage  into  the  borders  of  Cuba  and  the  Phil- 
ippine Islands,  for  beneficent  purposes,  and  in  doing  so 
brought  to  their  peoples  the  great  elements  of  civiliza- 
tion. 

The  justification  for  this  enforced  crossing  of  the 
borders  has  been  amply  demonstrated.  There  is  such  a 
thing  as  a  beneficent  intrusion  upon  restricted  territory, 
and  we  find  ample  illustrations  of  this  in  individual  life. 
Many  of  us,  by  reason  of  narrow  conceits  or  prejudices, 
limit  our  lives  to  certain  fixed  ideas  or  conceptions,  with 
the  result  that  we  experience  a  mental  poverty  that  ul- 
timately becomes  a  hindrance  and  an  embarrassment  to 
us  all  along  the  way.  Where  we  guard  our  boundaries 
with  prejudices  and  bigotries,  we  lose  much  that  is 
good,  beneficent  and  stimulating,  and  thereby  weaken 
and  impoverish  our  lives. 

This  has  striking  application  to  those  religious  ideals 
that  are  ever  pressing  upon  the  borders  of  our  life  for 
recognition  and  acceptance.  We  refuse  them  admission 
because  of  a  misconception  as  to  their  purpose  or  a  mis- 


128  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

interpretation  of  their  design.  The  Man  of  Nazareth 
has  stood  persistently  waiting  for  recognition  through 
the  long  years;  His  aims  and  purposes  have,  perhaps, 
been  misrepresented  to  our  consciousness,  through  the 
narrowness  or  bigotry  of  those  who  essayed  to  be  His 
interpreters;  perhaps  His  Church  with  its  varied  forms 
and  expressions  of  His  life  has  seemed  to  us  to  be  a 
useful  but  unnecessary  agency.  We  have  assumed  an 
attitude  either  of  incredulity  or  open  opposition  to  His 
teachings.  However  persistently  His  demands  may  have 
been  made  or  however  beautiful  and  sublime  His  per- 
sonality may  have  seemed,  for  one  reason  or  another 
we  have  pursued  our  course,  unheeding  His  claims  and 
refusing  both  Him  and  His  system  of  life  free  access 
through  our  borders. 

Many  of  us  recognizing  this  Master  life  upon  our 
boundaries  acknowledge  its  sublimity,  confess  the  beauty 
of  its  teachings  and  perhaps  recognize  the  value  and 
validity  of  its  institutions,  but  after  all,  it  is  only  a  border 
confession  and  penetrates  no  deeper.  Someone  has  well 
said  that  the  only  test  of  the  teachings  of  Jesus  is,  "to 
live  His  life."  In  other  words,  there  can  be  no  spiritual 
enrichment  from  superficial,  border  contact. 

Holman  Hunt,  in  a  masterful  way,  portrayed  Christ 
as  "The  Light  of  the  World,"  standing  at  the  door  per- 
sistently knocking  for  admission.  In  this  great  painting, 
he  makes  graphically  clear  selfish  indifference,  resulting 
in  definite  refusal  of  the  divine  life.  Today,  this  kingly 
life  is  once  again  asking  for  passage  through  the  border. 
He  is  asking  for  admission  into  those  large  human  con- 
cerns that  have  to  do  with  the  great  issues  of  nations 
and  peoples.  Again,  He  is  pleading  for  the  recognition 
of  His  principles  as  they  have  to  do  with  human  happi- 
ness and  the  highest  development  of  individual  efficiency. 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 129 

The  large  question  confronting  each  one  of  us  is  not, 
"What  think  ye  of  Christ?"  but,  how  far  shall  we  give 
Him  free  and  controlling  access  through  the  border  and 
into  the  inner  recesses  of  our  thought  and  habit  i^ 

^        ^        •» 

HELPING  WITH  THE  LOAD 

**T>EAR  ye  one  another's  burdens."  We  recently 
JL/  noticed  at  the  foot  of  one  of  our  heavy  grades 
a  pair  of  splendid  horses  that  were  held  in  reserve  for 
the  purpose  of  rendering  aid  to  other  over-burdened 
teams  as  they  attempted  to  climb  the  hill  with  their 
heavy  loads.  We  were  confident  that  if  the  teams 
thus  assisted  could  speak,  they  would  express  their 
gratitude  to  the  emergency  horses  that  enabled  them  to 
haul  their  load  successfully  up  the  grade.  Once  the  top 
was  reached,  the  emergency  team  was  detached  only  to 
repeat  again  and  again  throughout  the  long  day  the  serv- 
ice of  burden-bearing  and  load-lifting. 

It  suggested  to  our  mind  a  lesson  that  every  one  of 
us  must  learn,  if  life  is  to  be  made  more  satisfying  and 
efficient.  The  old  idea  of  insularity  or  of  individual  and 
selfish  satisfaction  must  give  place  to  that  of  social  re- 
sponsibility. The  average  of  us  can  pull  our  load  along 
ways  that  are  smooth  and  unhindered  by  embarrassing 
obstacles.  It  is  only  when  we  strike  the  up-grade, 
especially  where  it  is  rendered  the  more  difficult  by  ob- 
stacles, that  we  need  assistance  to  pull  the  load. 

Our  great  nation  recognized  this  when  the  cry  came 
from  overburdened  armies,  that  they  could  not  overcome 
the  obstacles  and  difficulties  imposed  upon  them  by  a 
selfish  and  imperious  enemy.     With  gladness  our  lads 


130  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

undertook  the  task,  and  what  America  did  to  carry  the 
load  is  recognized  with  gratitude  by  her  comrades  over- 
seas. We  Hterally  hitched  our  strong  team  to  the  load 
that  was  slipping  back,  and  with  freshness  and  enthusi- 
asm we  forced  it  ahead  until  the  crest  of  the  hill  was 
passed. 

Now  we  are  facing  the  more  difficult  task  of  re-order- 
ing and  re-arranging  the  world's  multitudinous  and  com- 
plex social  and  industrial  conditions  and  we  are  reminded 
that  if  the  greatly  increased  burden  that  now  rests  upon 
our  nation  is  to  be  successfully  carried,  it  demands  co- 
operation and  team-work  all  around.  There  is  no  room 
in  this  country  today  for  the  man  or  woman  who  believes 
in  the  old  "go  it  alone"  policy.  For  the  time  being,  we 
are  pausing  at  the  foot  of  the  up-grade  and  some  of  us 
seem  to  think  we  cannot  or  shall  not  make  it,  and  we 
will  not,  unless  we  all  pull  until  the  peak  of  the  burden- 
bearing  is  passed. 

Up  to  the  time  we  entered  the  war  we  were  becoming 
more  and  more  selfish  and  individualistic.  We  were  say- 
ing: "May  I  not  do  what  I  will  with  mine  own?"  But 
now  we  are  learning  that  we  are  "members  one  of  an- 
other," and  that,  "no  man  liveth  to  himself."  Every- 
where, in  all  places  and  under  all  conditions,  we  must  be 
load-lifters,  burden-bearers,  helping  others  and  assisting 
them  on  the  way  until  the  up-hill  grade  is  passed  and 
the  level  road  is  reached.  Those  who  want  an  extra 
team  all  the  time  in  order  that  they  may  slip  back  in 
the  collar  and  let  the  emergency  team  do  all  the  work 
will  not  be  considered. 

After  all,  there  is  nothing  so  compensating  in  life  as 
this  great  game  of  burden-bearing  and  load-carrying.  We 
need  to  get  the  vision  of  the  Scotch  lassie  whom  Ian  Mac- 
laren  described.    Standing  one  day  at  the  top  of  the  hill 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 131 

a  Scotch  minister  saw  a  little  girl  toiling  laboriously  up 
the  way  bearing  upon  her  back  a  heavy  burden.  As  she 
came  nearer,  the  minister  saw  she  was  carrying  a  baby 
boy,  too  large  and  heavy  for  her  young  shoulders.  With 
indignation  he  said:  "Lassie,  isn't  he  too  hivvy  for 
ye?"  Whereupon,  without  unbending  from  her  load,  but 
clasping  more  tightly  the  chubby  hands  beneath  her  chin, 
the  Scotch  maiden  said:  "Why,  sir,  he's  na  hivvy,  he's 
ma  brither." 

Here  is  the  secret  of  burden-bearing,  the  consciousness 
that  the  load  we  carry  for  another  is  the  self -accepted 
load  of  a  brother  or  sister  on  life's  great  highway. 

REASONING  TOGETHER 

'^/'^OME  now,  and  let  us  reason  together."  The  Bible 
V>  is  a  book  which  calls  for  conference,  conciliation 
and  the  adjustment  of  differences.  It  has  all  too  fre- 
quently been  regarded  as  a  book  that  emphasizes  dis- 
tinctions and  classifications.  The  whole  purpose  of  the 
Advent  of  Jesus  Christ  is  stated  in  the  words :  "God 
sent  not  His  Son  into  the  world  to  condemn  the  world, 
but  that  the  world  through  Him  might  be  saved." 

It  has  taken  us  a  long  time  to  appreciate  and  practice 
in  all  our  relations  with  each  other  the  divine  method. 
The  world  has  been  split  up  into  parties,  sects,  classes 
and  denominations,  and  the  spirit  of  conference,  con- 
ciliation, and  adjustment  has  been  foreign  to  most  of 
our  systems.  The  gathering  together  of  twenty-five 
sovereign  powers  to  sit  about  a  peace  table  to  discuss 
the  federation  of  nations  and  to  promote  world  peace 
is  a  fine  example  of  the  Christian  method. 


132  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

As  with  the  individual,  so  with  groups ; — isolation  and 
separation  produce  misunderstanding,  friction,  divorce 
of  interests,  and  ultimately  open  enmity.  We  have  been 
altogether  too  prone  to  accent  the  divisions  that  exist  in 
our  corporate  life,  notably  in  our  vast  industrial  system, 
with  the  result  that  suspicions  have  been  engendered, 
the  spirit  of  envy  has  been  created,  and  finally,  an  open 
breach  made  dangerously  imminent.  The  war  has  dem- 
onstrated that  what  we  termed  Christian  civilization,  calls 
for  and  demands  the  real  and  not  the  sentimental  recog- 
nition of  the  second  great  commandment:  "Thou  shalt 
love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  All  this  implies  the  restor- 
ation of  confidence  and  this  can  only  come  through  vital 
fellowship  and  conference. 

We  believe  the  conscience  of  the  world  today  is  more 
sensitive  than  it  has  ever  been  before,  and  we  further 
believe  that  Christianity  as  a  rule  of  life  is  to  disclose 
itself  more  evidently  in  all  human  relationships.  It  is 
doubtless  important  that  men  should  meet  together  for 
corporate  worship,  but  the  trouble  has  been  that  the  fel- 
lowship and  spirit  of  the  House  of  Worship  have  not 
been  translated  into  deeds  of  service.  It  is  of  little  use 
that  we  pray  together  unless  we  are  prepared  to  confer 
and  counsel  together.  It  is  of  little  use  that  we  sing, 
"Blest  be  the  tie  that  binds,"  unless  we  undertake  in  a 
practical  and  sane  way  to  emphasize  these  bonds  of  fel- 
lowship in  all  our  daily  intercourse.  Wise  old  Ben 
Franklin's  aphorism,  "We'll  hang  together  or  we'll  hang 
separately,"  has  its  application  to  the  exigencies  of  the 
present  hour. 

There  will  always  be  temperamental  differences  in  the 
world  as  well  as  a  wide  variety  of  expression  of  these 
differences,  but  if  Christianity  is  to  mean  something  more 
to  us  than  a  once-a-week  service,  it  must  function  in  a 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  133 

practical  way  in  all  the  common  week-day  concerns  of 
life.  We  of  America  have  repeatedly  shown  our  genius 
for  getting  together  and  acting  together.  The  federation 
of  States  into  a  great  union  is  illustrative  of  this.  We 
may  represent  many  old  world  strains  and  races,  but  not- 
withstanding this,  we  are  the  United  States.  To  main- 
tain this  union  and  to  do  it  fairly  and  equitably  is  the 
supreme  demand  of  the  present  hour.  Any  individual 
or  group,  unwilling  to  reason  through  conference  and 
interchange  of  views  with  their  fellows,  violates  the  very 
fundamental  principles  of  our  national  being. 

Suspicion,  misunderstanding,  unfair  advantage,  or  un- 
willingness to  promote  and  give  the  "square  deal,"  are 
the  evidences  of  our  disloyalty,  not  only  to  the  State, 
but  to  those  Christian  principles  that  underlie  our  secur- 
ity, our  prosperity,  and  our  permanence.  We  cannot 
live  as  hermits,  we  must  live  together  in  peace  and  amity ; 
therefore,  let  us  "reason  together." 

A  SEARCHING  QUESTION 

**"¥ TTHOM  say  the  people  that  I  am?"  Every  now 
W  and  again  we  have  great  revivals  of  interest 
in  certain  outstanding  world  figures,  men  and  women 
who,  in  one  period  or  another,  have  filled  the  world's 
vision.  Today  as  never  before  there  is  a  uni- 
versal endeavor  to  understand  more  clearly  the  "man 
in  seamless  robe"  who  stood  at  the  judgment  seat  of  the 
Roman  governor,  Pontius  Pilate.  It  is  safe  to  say  that 
He  is  the  most  universally  known  and  yet  the  most  wide- 
ly misunderstood  figure  in  all  history.  Even  as  when 
He  walked  among  men  they  misinterpreted  Him,  so  again 


134  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

and  again  have  they  failed  to  grasp  the  true  significance 
of  His  marvelous  life.  That  He  yearned  for  a  world  that 
would  understand  Him  and  rightly  measure  His  mighty 
life  purpose  is  clearly  evident.  Here  in  our  text  He  was 
seeking  for  some  expression  of  the  people's  estimate  of 
Him  and  His  ministry. 

Today  this  kingly  figure  has  come  again  to  fill  our 
horizon,  and  a  new  interest  more  reverent  and  we  be- 
lieve far  more  intelligent  than  that  which  any  other  age 
has  known  is  being  disclosed. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  almost  all  the  great  books 
on  the  "Life  of  Christ"  have  been  written  within  the 
past  half  century.  It  is  a  more  notable  fact  that  the 
greatest  of  these  was  written  by  a  Jew,  namely,  Eder- 
sheim.  Renan,  the  brilliant  Frenchman,  found  his  chief 
delight,  skeptic  that  he  was,  in  writing  his  fascinating 
story  of  the  "Life  of  Jesus."  In  the  silences  of  St. 
Helena,  Napoleon  mused  long  and  thought  deeply  of 
this  Divine  Man.  Sometimes  the  church  has  obscured 
this  kingly  figure  and  placed  it  beyond  the  reach  of 
men,  by  investing  it  with  qualities  and  attributes  that 
render  it  unintelligible  and  unapproachable. 

The  Christ  that  walked  among  men,  that  touched  in- 
timately their  homely  occupations,  that  sought  out  the 
lonely  and  obscure,  that  found  equal  opportunity  for 
service  at  the  gladsome  marriage  feast  or  as  the  great 
Comforter  in  the  village  where  His  friend  Lazarus  had 
died,  is  made  to  appear  as  so  far  removed  from  all  our 
daily  habits  and  tasks  as  to  be  entirely  out  of  touch  and 
sympathy  with  our  common  needs. 

He  sought  the  people,  He  lived  with  them,  struggled 
for  them,  loved  them  with  a  deeper  love  than  the  world 
has  ever  known  and  to  make  this  love  more  evident,  He 
gladly  died  for  them. 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  135 

There  is  a  pathetic  cry  heard  today  which  discloses 
the  failure,  in  part  at  least  of  some  of  us,  His  accredited 
teachers,  to  rightly  interpret  Him ;  it  is,  "Sirs,  we  would 
see  Jesus." 

"Back  to  Christ,"  this  is  the  twentieth  century  slogan. 
He  is  the  heart  of  Christianity,  His  life  is  its  matchless 
example.  His  teachings  its  unfailing  guide,  His  promises 
its  security  and  its  hope.  Perhaps  in  our  endeavor  to 
make  His  church  so  utterly  institutional,  to  equip  it  with 
all  sorts  of  new  mechanisms  that  are  popular,  we  have 
put  Him  away  from  the  vision  of  men. 

Perhaps  in  our  efforts  after  scholarship  and  our  con- 
ceits of  learning  we  have  failed  to  make  Him  plain  to 
the  minds  and  hearts  of  men.  Perhaps  in  our  building 
of  too  ornate  churches  and  our  setting  up  of  too  elabor- 
ate systems  of  worship  we  have  made  Him  unintelligible 
to  the  people.  It  is  a  time  for  serious  thinking  and  new 
planning;  it  is  a  time  in  which  the  central  fact  of  all 
our  religious  faith  should  be  strongly  accented.  Chris- 
tianity is  built  upon  a  personality ;  it  is  the  expression  of 
a  life.  True,  we  must  have  systems  and  organizations, 
but  these  must  fail  unless  they  reproduce  in  their  devotees 
the  mighty  principles  of  living  of  which  He  is  the  su- 
preme embodiment.  Christianity  is  not  merely  the  pro- 
fession of  a  creed  nor  is  it  merely  adherence  to  a  system, 
it  is  the  reproduction  of  a  life. 

It  is  men  of  His  spirit  to  whom  alone  we  may  look  at 
this  time  to  point  us  the  truer  and  better  way  that  shall 
ultimately  lead  us  on  and  up  to  new  heights  of  power 
where  brotherly  kindness  shall  displace  selfishness,  greed 
and  conflict. 

^        ^        ^ 


136  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 


THE  LOGIC  OF  LIFE 

**T_TE  bringeth  them  to  the  haven  where  they  would 

A  A  be."  Never  before  as  in  the  present  hour,  have 
these  words  had  so  large  a  significance.  After  months 
of  hard  and  trying  service  overseas,  the  boys  are  coming 
home  to  what  they  call  "God's  Own  Country."  If  we  of 
the  home  land  have  yearned  for  their  return,  they,  in  a 
strange  country,  experiencing  the  sterner  hardships  of 
army  life,  have  felt  a  longing  for  the  familiar  scenes 
that  is  indescribable. 

The  break-up  in  the  routine  of  life,  the  changed  occu- 
pations, the  unheralded  and  unknown  future  to  which 
they  went  forth,  and  now  the  attempt  to  readjust  life's 
relations,  and  to  restore  them  to  the  place  of  efficient 
service,  bring  us  face  to  face  with  the  great  question  of 
life's  purpose  and  end.  We  are  witnessing  today,  as 
never  before,  the  inevitable  results  that  logically  follow 
what  may  be  called  the  "choice  of  destiny." 

We  have  seen  a  great  nation,  whose  place  of  distinction 
and  power  was  the  envy  and  admiration  of  the  world, 
brought  as  a  criminal  to  the  bar  of  the  world's  judg- 
ment because  it  chose  for  itself  the  pursuit  of  selfish 
ambition,  and  in  its  vain  endeavor  for  world  domination 
came  ultimately  to  that  unenviable  place  which  its  own 
choice  foredoomed.  It  is  universally  true,  God  brings 
nations  and  men  to  the  haven  of  their  own  choosing. 

What  is  true  of  the  group  is  true  of  the  individual, 
and  while  there  may  be  exceptions  here  and  there  to  the 
general  rule,  we  are  largely  the  architects  of  our  own 
fortunes.  All  too  frequently  we  charge  an  unseen  hand 
with  the  control  and  direction  of  our  lives,  and  we  curse 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 137 

our  fate  because  in  the  game  of  life  the  odds  seem  to 
be  against  us. 

It  is  perfectly  clear  that  now  and  again  fortuitous 
circumstances  affect  our  plans,  and  our  best  intentions 
and  designs  miscarry.  Napoleon  thought  this  when  the 
Alps  intervened  between  him  and  victory,  but  he  de- 
clared: "There  shall  be  no  Alps."  Columbus  thought 
this  when,  after  weary  days  on  a  chartless  sea  with  a 
mutinous  crew,  he  seemed  to  fail  of  his  objective,  but 
undaunted  he  wrote  persistently  in  his  log:  "Today  we 
sailed  westward." 

The  world  is  taking  a  fresh  start  today,  and  our  re- 
turning boys  remind  us  that  they,  too,  are  beginning  over 
again,  hence  the  importance  of  choosing  aright  life's 
objective;  and  it  is  well  to  remember  in  the  choosing 
that  occupation  is  a  mighty  factor  in  the  shaping  of  char- 
acter. If  work  means  only  self-satisfaction  and  self- 
gratification,  it  can  but  result  in  ultimate  failure,  no 
matter  what  its  emoluments  may  be.  On  the  other  hand, 
to  many  a  man  or  woman  to  whom  the  world  has  denied 
a  "living  wage"  there  has  been  given  the  opportunity  for 
a  service  of  incomparable  and  enduring  value.  We  are 
bound  to  believe  that  the  fairmindedness  of  this  new 
age  is  to  right  injustices  and  correct  inequities,  but  apart 
from  all  this  let  us  remember  that  the  choice  we  make 
in  life's  great  scheme  of  things,  if  it  is  to  bring  us  to  a 
place  of  satisfaction  and  security,  must  be  made  with 
reference  to  that  which  it  inevitably  leads  to,  namely,  a 
self-determined  destiny. 

All  this  has  its  peculiar  application  to  what  we  call  our 
moral  or  spiritual  life.  It  is  as  certain  as  sunrise  that 
"whatsoever  a  man  soweth  that  shall  he  also  reap."  This 
has  never  been  more  demonstrably  clear  than  now,  and 
we  have  come  to  realize  that  if  we  sow  a  habit  we  reap 


138  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

a  character,  and  if  we  sow  a  character  we  reap  a  destiny. 
St.  Paul  clearly  apprehended  this  when  he  declared: 
"Neither  doth  corruption  inherit  incorruption." 

There  is  a  well  defined  logic  in  life,  and  we  are,  each 
one  severally  for  himself,  working  it  out.  God  brings  na- 
tions and  men  to  the  haven  of  their  own  choosing. 

WHAT  OF  SUNDAY? 

THE  great  teacher,  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  once  declared : 
"The  Sabbath  was  made  for  man,  not  man  for  the 
Sabbath." 

Repeatedly  in  his  wonderful  ministry,  he  seemed  to 
show  a  lack  of  punctilious  regard  for  the  traditional  prac- 
tices and  uses  of  the  Hebrew  Sabbath.  He  healed  men 
on  the  Sabbath  day  and,  to  meet  the  needs  of  his  dis- 
ciples when  they  were  hungry,  he  made  provision  by 
plucking  the  ears  of  corn. 

Sunday  has  come  to  be  universally  regarded  as  a  day 
of  rest  and  recreation,  and  round  the  world  the  human 
machine  is  supposed  to  relax  and  recuperate  one  day 
in  seven.  Unfortunately  in  many  modern  industries  this 
is  not  true,  and  we  believe  that  some  day  the  economic 
waste  resulting  from  this  violation  of  a  great  law  will 
be  made  evident.  There  are  more  conflicting  views  as 
to  what  Sunday  is  designed  for  than  about  most  other 
questions.  To  some,  the  day  is  one  for  physical  relaxa- 
tion and  quiet;  to  others,  it  is  a  day  for  pleasure  and 
entertainment;  to  some,  unfortunately,  it  is  a  day  for  ex- 
cesses of  one  kind  and  another,  and  to  a  certain  very 
respectable  number  it  is  a  day  for  worship  and  deeper 
thought,   concerning  the  things  that  are  vital   to  life. 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  139 

Habits  and  practices  from  generation  to  generation 
change,  and  for  a  Puritanical  Sunday  that  was  cold  and 
forbidding,  our  age  has  substituted  a  Sunday  that  is 
more  like  a  holiday  than  a  holy  day.  There  doubtless 
have  been  extremes,  and  extremes  that  are  out  of  har- 
mony with  the  teaching  of  the  world's  great  Master.  We 
recall  the  New  England  blue  laws  that  made  it  a  misde- 
meanor for  a  man  to  kiss  his  wife  on  Sunday,  and  we 
also  recall  that  in  a  middle  western  state  one  of  the 
general  laws  provides  a  penalty  for  any  one  14  years  of 
age  and  upward  who  works  at  common  labor  on  Sunday. 
We  have  sometimes  wished  the  latter  law  were  univers- 
ally enforced. 

No  matter  what  our  views  may  be  about  the  uses  of 
the  day,  it  is  made  clearly  evident  that  religion,  real,  vital 
religion,  depends  in  no  small  measure  upon  this  day  and 
its  reverent  use  for  its  propagation  and  permanence. 
Sunday  and  religion  are  indissolubly  related.  Again  we 
say,  Sunday  and  man's  best  interests  are  indissolubly  re- 
lated, and  we  doubt  whether  a  man  can  enjoy  a  full,  rich, 
well-rounded  life,  without  a  reasonable  recognition  of 
those  high  things  for  which  Sunday  stands.  The  Jew, 
Disraeli,  once  said:  "Of  all  divine  institutions  the  most 
divine  is  that  which  secures  a  day  of  rest  for  man.  It  is 
the  cornerstone  of  civilization."  This  is  unquestionably 
true,  and  as  our  civilization  is  based  in  no  small  part  upon 
the  things  of  religion,  it  behooves  us  to  maintain  at  its 
highest  standard  of  value  that  ideal  of  Sunday  tha* 
recognizes  the  place  of  both  rest  and  worship.  A  great 
Englishman  said :  "The  observance  of  Sunday  lies  deep 
in  the  everlasting  necessities  of  human  nature."  We  be- 
lieve this  is  the  point  that  Jesus  maintained  when  he  said : 
"The  Sabbath  was  made  for  man."  It  was  made  that 
he  might  have  opportunity  one  day  in  seven  for  larger 


140  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

self -development  and  for  the  disclosure  to  his  own 
vision  of  the  God  element  in  life.  It  is  strange  that  it  is 
so  difficult  to  be  sane  about  this  most  important  of  mat- 
ters. 

A  man  past  70  years  of  age  recently  sent  us  the  fol- 
lowing suggestive  verse: 

A  Sunday  well  spent 

Brings  a  week  of  content, 
And  health  for  the  toils  of  tomorrow. 

But  a  Sunday  profaned, 

Whate'er  may  be  gained, 
Is  a  certain  precursor  of  sorrow. 

REVEILLE 

HOW  little  we  ever  stop  to  reflect  upon  the  wonderful 
plan  by  which  God  breaks  our  periods  of  activity 
into  days  bounded  by  sunrise  and  sunset.  There  is 
something  about  this  arrangement  that  lends  a  peculiar 
zest  to  life  and  saves  us  from  the  disheartening  influ- 
ences of  failure  and  disappointment.  A  day  at  a  time, 
this  is  the  divine  order  of  life,  and  it  is  well  that  it  is 
so.  In  the  great  camps,  we  have  watched  the  tired  men 
in  brown  as  they  returned  from  their  long,  hot  marches 
and  drills,  and  we  have  noted  in  their  faces  the  evi- 
dences of  fatigue  and  perhaps  the  sense  of  yearning  for 
the  things  of  home;  but  we  have  seen  these  same  men 
turn  out  in  the  early  morning,  when  "reveille"  was 
sounded,  with  faces  bright  with  the  morning  sun,  re- 
freshed and  glad  to  take  up  again  the  hard  and  exacting 
tasks  laid  upon  them.  It  was  the  call  of  the  new  day, 
made  more  splendid  by  the  refreshment  that  comes  with 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  141 

restored  and  renewed  bodies.  All  the  disappointments 
and  failures  of  the  preceding  day  were  forgotten,  life 
was  as  new  to  them  as  "when  the  morning  stars  sang 
together."  There  is  something  that  moves  us  to  re- 
flection in  the  glowing  sunset,  but  there  is  something  that 
stirs  us  to  action  in  the  golden  morning.  How  the  fev- 
ered patient  tossing  on  his  bed  longs  for  the  night  to 
pass,  how  the  watchman  following  his  weary  rounds 
looks  to  the  east  for  the  first  signs  of  returning  day, 
how  the  soldier  standing  through  the  exacting  watches 
of  the  dark  waits  for  the  morning  to  come. 

Reveille  is  the  call  to  life  and  it  is  the  call  to  service. 
We  may  go  to  our  beds  burdened  with  the  consciousness 
of  failure,  but  he  is  abnormal  who  wakes  to  a  new  day 
with  a  sense  of  liabilities  too  heavy  to  be  borne.  To 
one  and  all  of  us  reveille  sounds  every  day  of  life,  and 
what  does  it  mean?  Does  it  mean  new  life  and  a  larger 
service?  Does  the  "brown  taste"  in  our  mouths  remind 
us  of  the  misspent  hours  of  the  preceding  day?  Are 
we  carrying  over  into  the  new  day  the  burdening  failures 
or  the  enervating  weaknesses  or  the  body-destroying  sins 
that  repeatedly  have  caused  us  to  stumble  and  fall  in  the 
days  that  are  past?  If  so,  let  us  try  to  change  our  so- 
called  "habit  of  life."  Let  us  try  to  get  a  bit  of  Steven- 
son's point-of-view  that  helped  him  to  "climb  the  bare 
stairs  of  duty,  inch  by  inch,"  and  that,  in  the  face  of  a 
fearful  malady.  We  have  known  people  who  preferred 
to  breakfast  alone,  because  they  felt  so  out  of  sorts  with 
the  world  on  rising  that  they  could  not,  with  any  grace, 
even  say  "good  morning".  We  submit  that  this  is  a  sad 
and  deplorable  condition ;  such  people  ought  to  be  con- 
fined to  sanatoriums  or  homes  for  incurables. 

Reveille  means,  not  only  new  life,  it  is  the  call  to  a 
new  service.    We  do  not  reckon  with  those  undesirables 


142  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

who  have  no  service  to  perform  and  no  consciousness  of 
obligations  to  their  fellows.  We  want  to  assume  that  any- 
such  are  today  inconspicuous,  even  as  they  are  unworthy 
citizens  of  the  state.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the 
attitude  with  which  we  front  the  tasks  and  opportunities 
of  each  new  day,  predetermines  our  efficiency  and  our 
satisfaction  in  the  things  we  do.  If  reveille  called  our 
boys  to  their  weighty  tasks  each  morning,  shall  not  we 
who  stood  far  removed  from  the  great  battlefront,  learn 
to  recognize  its  summons  and  go  forth  to  do  our  part, 
that  the  life  of  the  world  in  which  we  live  may  be  better 
and  more  wholesome?  The  whole  world  today  is  hear- 
ing its  new  reveille,  its  larger  call  to  a  greater  and  nobler 
service  for  mankind.  It  is  as  if  a  new  creation  were 
at  hand,  as  if  a  new  civilization  were  being  born.  God 
is  sounding  His  later  reveille  to  the  children  of  earth,  this 
is  what  Julia  Ward  Howe  had  in  mind  in  her  majestic 
verse : 

"He  is  sounding  forth  His  trumpet  that  shall  never  call  retreat, 
He  is  sifting  out  the  hearts  of  men  before  His  judgment  seat; 
O  be  swift  my  soul  to  answer  Him,  be  jubilant  my  fee*, 
For  God  is  marching  on." 

Are  we  ready  as  a  people  for  the  later  call  ?  Are  we 
prepared  to  forget  the  things  that  are  behind  and  to 
reach  forth  unto  the  things  that  are  before,  in  order 
that  we  may  help  to  make  the  new  day  into  which  we 
are  entering  more  splendid  and  its  service  more  efficient 
and  its  results  to  the  children  of  men,  the  world  over, 
the  more  satisfying  and  equitable  ?  Yes,  it  is  reveille  that 
is  sounding,  the  new  day  is  at  hand,  let  there  be  no 
sluggards  in  the  great  camp,  let  there  be  no  looking  back- 
ward, no  bitterness  and  hatred  for  what  has  been,  but 
rather  a  larger,  finer,  sunnier  outlook  toward  that  which 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 143 

is  to  be.    The  world  is  being  called  to  higher  thinking  and 
nobler  living. 

^    n    *i. 

TAPS 

**^TpHE  night  cometh,"  The  last  bugle  note  is  sound- 
A  ing  and  all  the  lights  in  the  great  camp  are  ex- 
tinguished, and  the  tired  men  in  brown  are  at  rest. 
So  ends  every  day  of  life.  Begun  at  reveille,  it  closes 
with  "taps."    Sleep  that 

"Knits  up  the  raveled  sleeve  of  care," 

is  God's  benediction  to  the  tired  sons  of  earth. 

From  the  lisped  prayer  of  the  child,  said  at  its  mother's 
knee,  to  the  petition  of  the  tired  man  or  woman,  it's  the 
day's  last  act,  the  closing  of  another  page  in  the  great 
drama  of  life.  If  we  begin  the  day  with  new  enthusiasm 
and  freshened  hope,  how  do  we  close  it?  If  life  is 
properly  balanced  and  poised,  if  its  occupations  are  good 
and  its  service  fairly  rendered,  then  its  evening  hours  are 
filled  with  satisfaction  and  its  hours  of  repose  are  made 
secure  by  refreshing  sleep.  The  world  at  work  is  only 
made  possible  by  the  world  at  rest. 

How  little  do  we  realize  the  value  of  repose,  how 
little  do  w^e  appraise  that  full  third  of  all  our  life  that 
God  has  ordained  for  man's  restoration.  Is  there  not 
something  about  the  soft,  gentle  call  of  "taps'*  that  stirs 
us  to  deep  reflection?  Do  not  the  many  voices  of  the 
day  seem  restrained  and  hushed,  its  varied  and  noisy  oc- 
cupations withdrawn,  its  applause  or  criticism  silenced 
as  the  curtain  of  nijjht  falls?    It  is  the  hour  of  reflec- 


144  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

tion,  yes,  and  it  is  the  hour  of  detachment  and  isolation. 
Men  live  together  in  the  bright  noonday,  they  live  alone 
when  "taps"  is  sounded. 

It  was  a  great  poet  who  wrote  of  "Night  thoughts," 
but  no  one  may  express  for  us  the  summed-up  reflections 
of  our  day  of  life.  Every  one  of  us  begins  the  day  with 
addition  and  multiplication,  but  we  end  it  with  subtrac- 
tion and  division.  What  you  or  I  may  be,  the  new  morn- 
ing suggests,  but  what  we  actually  are,  the  night  de- 
clares. 

All  the  pomp  and  ceremony,  all  the  artificial  and  exter- 
nal things  are  seen  in  their  true  perspective  whenever  the 
world  is  withdrawn  and  its  clamorous  voices  stilled.  What 
do  we  see  of  our  real  self,  our  undisguised  and  actual 
self,  when  "taps"  tells  us  the  night  has  come?  Is  it  a 
self  that  has  expressed  in  no  uncertain  or  obscure  way  the 
best,  is  it  a  self  that  in  word  or  deed  has  lived  a  full- 
rounded,  unimpaired  day  of  life,  useful  to  man  and  hon- 
orable to  God?  Has  this  we  call  self  been  a  vehicle  of 
blessing  or  only  a  receptacle  that  gathers  of  the  world's 
gifts  for  self -consumption? 

Viewed  in  the  shadows  of  the  night,  when  God's  maj- 
esty discloses  itself  in  the  gemmed  heavens,  does  this 
life  of  ours  seem  to  our  clear  vision  all  that  it  ought  to 
be?  To  answer  such  questions  as  these  and  to  do  it 
fairly,  means  to  balance  our  books  and  to  reveal  the  evi- 
dences of  success  or  failure. 

What  does  the  tired  soldier  think  of  when  "taps"  is 
sounded?  He  thinks,  however  briefly,  of  all  the  action 
of  the  day,  its  tiring  marches,  its  hard  disciplines,  its  tri- 
umphs or  its  defeats — ^yes,  and  in  this  closing  hour  he 
thinks  of  home  and  loved  ones,  of  faces  that  people  his 
mind,  of  other  days  and  fellowships.  And  what  do 
these  finer  thoughts  mean  to  him?   If  they  mean  anything 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 145 

they  mean  the  crowding  out  of  the  day's  cares  and  trials; 
yes,  and  the  crowding  out  of  those  baser  things  that  in 
the  unreflective  and  forgetful,  make  for  misery,  bitter- 
ness and  pain.  Blessed  "taps" — that  brings  the  hour  of 
utter  detachment,  when  we  really  tell  ourselves  who  and 
what  we  are.  When  "taps"  is  sounded  may  we  be  able 
to  say: 

"I  will  lay  me  down  in  peace  and  take  my  rest,  for  thou  Lord 
only  makest  me  to  dwell  in  safety." 

CARRY  ON 

"'VTO  man,  having  put  his  hand  to  the  plough,"  said 
■^  ^  the  Master,  "and  looking  back,  is  fit  for  the  king- 
dom of  God."  No  man  or  leader  ever  so  utterly  and 
completely  disesteemed  the  inconstant,  the  vacillating  and 
the  wavering  as  did  Jesus  Christ.  He  always  dealt  with 
life's  positives  and  its  affirmatives.  There  is  something 
splendid  about  His  unfailing  perseverance  in  the  face  of 
all  obstacles.  We  like  the  expression,  "He  set  his  face 
to  go  up  to  Jerusalem." 

In  all  His  dealings  with  men,  especially  with  His  dis- 
ciples. He  seeks  to  inspire  them  with  a  reasonable  en- 
thusiasm, a  positive  conviction,  and  an  unwavering  pur- 
pose. Of  a  doubting  Thomas  He  makes  an  apostle  of 
glorious  power  and  martyr-like  spirit.  An  impulsive  and 
uncertain  Simon  He  makes  a  Petros,  a  stone  of  ada- 
mant, impossible  of  dislodgment.  He  transforms  the 
fanaticism  and  unreasoning  zeal  of  Saul  of  Tarsus  into 
the  intelligent  positiveness  and  heroic  enthusiasm  of  Paul, 
the  mighty  apostle.    What  a  magnificent  evidence  of  this 


146 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

we  have  when  the  brutal  Nero  attempts  to  silence  this 
hero  of  the  cross;  from  his  prison  he  cries  in  trium- 
phant tones,  "I  have  finished  my  course,  I  have  kept  the 
faith,"  and  the  enthusiasm  of  his  zeal  stirs  even  the 
household  of  the  voluptuous  emperor. 

Desultory  and  indifferent  as  many  of  our  modern  ten- 
dencies are,  capricious  and  mercurial  as  the  present  age 
may  be,  the  world  at  large  has  a  deep  and  unfailing  ad- 
miration for  the  man  or  woman,  who,  with  stout  per- 
severance and  in  the  face  of  all  difficulties,  prosecutes 
with  indomitable  energy,  some  definite  purpose.  It  is  not 
the  man  with  the  hoe,  but  the  man  with  the  plough  who 
challenges  our  attention  and  admiration. 

Balzac  once  said,  "Genius  is  intensity."  Yes,  it  is  in- 
tensity, plus  determination  and  perseverance.  "I  will," 
is  the  word  of  power.  "I  can't,"  is  the  word  of  weak- 
ness and  despair.  It's  some  Field,  making  several  inef- 
fective and  immensely  costly  attempts  to  lay  his  cable 
that  two  continents  may  be  intimately  related,  who  wins 
ultimately  the  world's  applause  and  its  lasting  gratitude. 
It's  some  Webster  working  36  years  on  his  dictionary; 
some  Edward  Gibbon  spending  20  years  on  his  Roman 
history ;  some  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  struggling  against 
physical  infirmities  to  complete  his  work,  that  leaves  be- 
hind a  monument  of  enduring  value  and  greatness. 

The  triumphant  and  irresistible  slogan  of  the  trenches 
was,  "Carry  On."  A  distinguished  modern  writer  has 
said:  "There  are  three  kinds  of  people  in  the  world; 
the  wills,  the  won'ts,  and  the  can'ts."  We  recall  that 
Edward  Irving  wrote  on  the  front  page  of  his  Greek 
Lexicon,  "6  A.  M.  I,  Edward  Irving,  promise  by  the 
grace  of  God  to  have  mastered  all  the  words  in  Alpha  and 
Beta  before  8  o'clock."  He  added  later,  "8  A.  M.  I, 
Edward  Irving,  by  the  grace  of  God  have  done  it." 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 147 

In  no  sphere  of  our  life  does  the  desultory  tendency 
disclose  itself  more  completely  than  in  our  religious  habits 
and  practices.  We  begin  the  life  of  faith  with  fine  en- 
thusiasm and  splendid  determination,  only  to  find  at 
length  that  we  lack  both  conviction  and  perseverance. 
Our  spiritual  ploughshare  rusts  in  the  furrow,  our  hands 
grow  weary,  and  we  lose  our  zest. 

How  unlike  the  Master  we  are.  He  saw  at  the  end 
of  His  way  the  cross ;  yes,  He  saw  it  from  the  beginning, 
but  it  never  gave  Him  pause  nor,  indeed,  did  its  shadow 
for  an  instant  cause  Him  to  hesitate.  Men  thought  when 
they  lifted  Him  up  upon  the  tree  and  when  they  heard 
His  last  cry  that  they  had  closed  His  career.  Had  they  ? 
It  had  only  begun,  and  from  the  cross  His  sceptered 
hands  have  come  to  rule  the  world. 

To  learn  early  in  life  the  lesson  He  taught,  means, 
even  in  the  face  of  every  obstacle,  to  equip  oneself  for 
every  emergency  or  exigency,  and  to  come  at  length 
at  the  end  of  the  road,  not  to  defeat,  but  to  flaming  and 
glorious  success. 

KILLED  IN  ACTION 

"^TpHEY  counted  not  their  lives  dear  unto  them- 
A  selves."  "What  did  the  field  marshal  die  of?" 
asked  a  French  colonel  of  one  of  his  colleagues.  "He 
died,  sir,  of  having  nothing  to  do."  "Ah,"  responded 
the  colonel,  "that  is  enough  to  kill  the  best  officer  of  us 
all."  The  vast  majority  of  us  do  not  suffer  so  much 
from  inaction  as  from  purposeless  action.  Few  men  are 
killed  in  action  in  our  humdrum,  commonplace,  everyday 


148  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

life,  but  many  of  us  are  seriously  conscious  of  the  fact 
that,  so  far  as  our  usefulness  in  the  world  is  concerned, 
we  ought  to  be. 

The  saddest  column  in  our  daily  papers  is  that  which 
tells  of  the  loss  of  our  boys  at  the  front,  and  yet  there 
is  something  about  the  unrecorded  valor  of  these  boys, 
that  gives  us  a  thrill  and  inspires  us  with  a  new  con- 
fidence in  humankind.  The  noblest  character  Dickens 
ever  portrayed  was  Sidney  Carton,  and  let  us  remember 
the  words  with  which  he  went  to  his  death:  "It  is  a 
far,  far  better  thing  that  I  do,  than  I  have  ever  done. 
It  is  a  far,  far  better  rest  that  I  go  to,  than  I  have  ever 
known." 

We  reckon  life  by  human  standards,  we  appraise  it 
by  the  measure  we  call  success.  Are  we  right  in  this? 
Judged  by  these  standards  the  men  and  women  who  have 
made  the  largest  contributions  to  life  have  been  failures. 
Robert  Burns  and  Oliver  Goldsmith  died  in  poverty,  Vic- 
tor Hugo  was  an  exile  from  his  beloved  France  for  near- 
ly twenty  years,  and  Jesus  Christ  was  despised  and 
finally  crucified  by  His  own  people. 

The  roll  of  those  killed  in  action  is  a  long  one,  and  it 
is  the  most  sacred  annal  the  world  contains.  No  one 
bids  for  martyrdom,  and  yet  everyone  knows  that  the 
finest  and  holiest  enthusiasms  of  life  are  generated  by 
those  who  die  in  action.  No  truer  word  has  been  writ- 
ten than  that  ancient  one:  "The  blood  of  the  martyrs 
is  the  seed  of  the  church."  The  great  periods  of  inspira- 
tion have  been  those  when  it  cost  something  to  be  a 
Christian. 

The  weakness  of  twentieth  century  religion,  as  well 
as  its  curse,  is  its  spirit  of  smugness  and  self-ease.  Re- 
ligious practice  in  our  day  is  a  kind  of  self-indulgence 
in  a  form  of  refined,  aesthetic,  somewhat  intellectual  and 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 149 

eminently  respectable  Sunday  entertainment;  something 
tliLt  requires  neither  physical  nor  mental  effort  on  our 
part,  but  rather  a  quiet,  placid  and  oftentimes  soporific 
occupation  that  society  regards  as  one  of  the  concomi- 
tants of  good  breeding.  Heroic  faith,  the  faith  that  is 
founded  upon  the  eternal  and  unchanging  principles  of 
righteousness,  that  dares  to  live  by  its  profession  day  by 
day,  this  is  less  conspicuous  now  than  it  once  was. 

What  are  we  to  gather  from  these  heroes  of  the 
battle  front?  What  is  to  accrue  to  American  manhood 
and  womanhood  as  the  result  of  their  supreme  sacrifice? 
We  say  soberly  and  advisedly,  no  man  is  fit  to  live  in 
this  country  as  the  beneficiary  of  those  who  died  in  ac- 
tion, unless  he  solemnly  resolves  that  they  shall  not 
have  died  in  vain.  Lincoln's  immortal  words  have  a 
solemn  message  for  this  hour : 

"It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the  great 
task  remaining  before  us,  that  from  these  honored  dead 
we  take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they 
gave  the  last,  full  measure  of  devotion." 

Our  love  of  country,  our  devotion  to  its  highest  ideals, 
our  determination  to  live  less  selfishly,  our  finer  recog- 
nition of  those  common  ties  that  bind  us  in  a  great  fel- 
lowship, to  which  each  one  of  us  must  make  his  definite 
contribution,  our  hatred  of  those  things  in  our  indus- 
trial and  social  life  that  cause  strife  and  division,  all 
these  and  many  more  things  that  are  just  and  fair,  and 
true  and  righteous  must  we  do,  if  these  boys  of  ours, 
killed  in  action,  are  not  to  have  died  in  vain. 

America  can  no  longer  live  its  old,  easy,  independent, 
care-free  life ;  it  is  costing  too  much.  In  the  future 
we  shall  have  to  get  away  from  our  flabby,  insular  and 


150   EVERYDAY  RELIGION   

insolent  habits,  and  play  the  game  of  life  by  new  rules. 
If  we  do  not,  the  finger  of  a  just  scorn  and  reproach 
will  be  pointed  at  us  by  those  who  were  killed  in  action. 

^      •S      ^ 

A  WORD  FOR  THE  CLERGY 

NOT  long  ago  a  popular  writer,  who  happens  to  be 
a  clergyman,  wrote  an  article  in  which  he  told  the 
story  of  his  daily  and  weekly  life.  He  was  a  man  of  a 
practical  turn  of  mind,  whose  ministry  has  been  finely 
helpful  and  whose  reputation,  through  his  books,  is  coun- 
try-wide. What  he  laid  down  as  the  plan  for  the  average 
clergyman's  service  was  bewildering  in  its  variety  and 
complexity.  A  layman  would  hardly  believe  that  the 
twentieth  century  parson  touched  as  many  phases  of 
life  as  this  program  indicated.  It  was  quite  clear  that 
the  minster  in  question  did  not  belong  to  a  union  that 
had  as  its  standard  an  eight  hour  day,  nor,  indeed,  that 
he  was  to  enjoy  a  period  of  rest  one  day  in  seven. 

We  think  the  average  layman  grossly  misconceives 
both  the  place  and  occupation  of  the  average  minister. 
Time  was,  when  he  preached  two  sermons  a  week,  con- 
ducted a  mid-week  Bible-class,  made  a  few  visits  in  a 
perfunctory  way,  and  then  relaxed  in  his  study  that  he 
might  be  edified  by  the  close  reading  of  many  books. 
He  had  little  or  no  contact  with  public  matters ;  in  other 
words,  he  had  his  "sphere"  and  it  was  a  mighty  limited 
and  contracted  one.  To  the  mind  of  the  layman  he  was 
an  anaemic  person,  a  sort  of  dehumanized  mortal  who 
lived  in  the  upper  airs  and  whose  feet  touched  the  earth 
rather  reluctantly.  He  was  a  man  who  had  no  practical 
knowledge,  who  was  out  of  touch  with  large   human 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  151 

concerns,  and  whose  occupation  was  altogether  "other- 
worldly." 

What  a  change  has  come,  and,  be  it  said,  what  a  change 
for  the  better !  Of  course  a  minister  should  be  well  in- 
formed, well  instructed  and  well  read;  his  profession 
requires  a  wide  knowledge  of  men  and  things,  but  to- 
day he  is  (if  he  is  a  live  man)  touching  every  phase 
of  life  in  the  community  in  which  he  lives.  If  he  is 
the  right  kind,  he  is  making  as  many  calls  as  an  active 
physician.  He  is  delivering  as  many  sermons  and  lec- 
tures as  the  most  occupied  professor.  He  is  as  much  of 
a  consultant  as  a  lawyer.  He  is  as  much  of  a  social 
worker,  dealing  with  a  multitude  of  problems,  as  those 
engaged  in  settlement  houses.  He  is  as  much  of  a  citi- 
zen, with  all  the  concerns  of  the  city  at  heart,  as  the 
man  in  public  office,  and  plus  all  this,  he  must  be  as 
much  of  a  reader  of  the  best  in  current  literature  and 
in  the  newspapers  as  the  man  of  aflfairs.  It  is  a  vast 
mistake  to  think  of  a  clergyman  as  being  removed  from 
common  things  or  the  common  people.  If  he  is  so 
removed,  he  is  a  failure,  and  no  one  knows  it  better 
than  he.  We  believe  that  no  minister  need  apologize  for 
being  "all  things  to  all  men."  The  only  clergyman  who 
ought  to  apologize  is  the  clergyman  who  is  unrelated  to 
the  mighty  human  problems  about  him. 

We  make  a  plea  for  the  saner  recognition  of  this  im- 
portant office,  for  a  kindlier  criticism  of  its  self-evident 
weaknesses.  A  friend  of  mine  used  to  say  that  the 
reason  why  clergymen  sometimes  failed  was  because 
all  of  them  were  made  out  of  laymen.  Take  the  pro- 
fession by  and  large,  with  all  its  opportunities  for  mak- 
ing mistakes,  it  averages  up  mighty  well.  If,  instead 
of  standing  off  from  the  parson,  the  layman  would  get 
next  him  and  help  him  in  the  solution  of  his  many  prob- 


152  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

lems,  human  society  would  be  better,  the  church  would 
preach  a  saner  gospel,  and  many  of  our  conspicuous  ills 
in  public  and  private  life  would  be  healed. 

GREAT  BEGINNINGS 

**TN  the  beginning, — God."  This  is  the  first  word 
-1.  in  the  Bible,  and  most  appropriately  so.  It  marks 
the  opening  passages  that  describe  the  creation  of  all 
things.  No  matter  how  the  scholar  or  scientist  may  re- 
gard this  amazing  story,  it  stands  unchallenged  as  one 
of  the  greatest  things  in  the  world's  literature.  In  majes- 
tic order  of  sequence  it  tells  of  the  vast  movements  of 
the  Creator  when  the  worlds  were  called  into  being  and 
life  began,  but  it  was — "In  the  beginning, — God." 

What  is  true  as  related  here,  is  true  of  all  the  vary- 
ing phases  of  human  life  and  its  experiences.  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson  once  said:  "No  man  may  say  that  he 
has  made  any  success  in  art  until  he  can  write  at  the 
top  of  the  page — 'Enter  God.'  "  What  a  difference  such 
a  conception  as  this  makes  in  one's  life!  The  trouble 
with  most  of  us  is,  that  we  begin  with  ourselves.  In 
the  great  count  we  are  "number  one,"  and  we  carry  this 
practice  into  all  our  dealings.  The  boy  begins  with  the 
maxim  from  the  lips  of  his  elders:  "Always  be  number 
one,"  and  with  this  conception  he  grows  up  to  be  sel- 
fish and  self-centered.  The  young  woman  emergfng  upon 
the  larger  field  of  her  action  is  admonished  by  her  ad- 
miring parents :  "Always  try  to  be  first."  The  motive 
behind  these  recommendations  is  usually  a  high  one,  but 
it  gives  a  wrong  outlook  to  life.  The  average  man  and 
woman  starts  each  day  with  the  thought  that  they  are 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  153 

supremely  important  and  indispensable  to  the  task  in 
which  they  are  engaged.  Everywhere  and  in  everything 
this  conception  of  importance  seems  to  obtain.  Why  not 
get  a  larger  and  finer  conception  of  life  than  this?  Why 
not  begin  each  day  with  the  thought,  that  all  life  springs 
from  the  great  Father  and  that  all  inspiration  and  power 
proceed  from  Him?  John  Quincy  Adams  would  not 
begin  the  day  as  President  of  the  United  States  without 
a  half  hour  in  the  presence  of  God.  William  Ewart 
Gladstone  would  not  attempt  to  direct  the  great  concerns 
of  the  British  Empire  until  he  had  sought  for  and  re- 
ceived inspiration  from  the  All-Father.  If  we  could 
only  discover  and  disclose  it,  we  would  be  amazed  to 
find  how  many  of  the  world's  greatest  men  and  women 
have  found  the  inspiration  of  their  genius  in  an  unfail- 
ing practice  of  the  presence  of  God. 

Some  one  says :  "It  is  a  splendid  thing  to  come  to  a 
new  beginning,"  and  so  it  is,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  what 
a  dreadful  thing  it  is  to  come  to  a  new  beginning  with- 
out the  consciousness  of  power,  or  to  start  from  a  new 
beginning  without  the  consciousness  of  destiny.  Our 
study,  our  work,  our  play,  if  they  are  to  have  behind 
them  the  driving  power  of  a  great  conviction,  must 
begin  with  a  stronger  and  more  vitalizing  influence 
than  that  which  self -consciousness  gives.  We  have  al- 
ways liked  that  word  recorded  of  a  great  prophet:  "A 
man  sent  by  God,"  the  impHcation  being  that  he  carried 
to  men  in  his  very  person  the  credentials  of  his  divine 
commission.  The  men  and  women  who  are  the  bank- 
rupts of  the  world  carry  no  such  self-evident  and  di- 
vinely given  letter  of  credit. 

The  point  we  want  to  make  is  this:  As  life  issued 
forth  from  a  divine  Creator,  so  it  is  conserved,  preserved, 
inspired  and  stimulated  by  the  daily  consciousness  of 


154 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

His  presence.  We  sometimes  think  He  broke  time  into 
fragments  of  twenty-four  hours  each  that  He  might  give 
us  daily  the  opportunity  for  a  fresh  start  or  a  new  begin- 
ning. Therefore  we  say  with  each  sunrise,  with  each 
new  task,  with  each  new  venture, — "In  the  beginning, — 
God." 

THE  CROSS 

WRITING  to  an  early  church,  the  Apostle  Paul 
declared  that,  "The  preaching  of  the  Cross  is  to 
them  that  perish  foolishness ;  but  unto  us  who  are  saved 
it  is  the  power  of  God." 

Originally  an  instrument  of  torture  and  a  badge  of 
infamy  and  shame,  the  Cross  has  been  lifted  into  a 
place  of  pre-eminence  and  distinction  as  the  symbol  of 
our  salvation.  Today  thirty  nations,  provinces  and  cities 
use  the  Cross  as  a  symbol  upon  their  state  and  national 
standards,  and  in  our  own  navy  there  is  but  one  flag  that 
ever  flies  above  the  national  colors  upon  our  men-of-war 
— it  is  the  little  flag  with  the  white  cross  upon  it  that 
breaks  from  the  maintop  when  divine  service  is  held 
for  Uncle  Sam's  sailors. 

To  those  who  have  no  apprehension  of  the  significance 
of  the  Cross  and  its  relation  to  their  lives,  it  must  seem 
as  foolishness,  but  to  those  who  recognize  that  it  is  the 
conspicuous  symbol  of  the  world's  faith  in  Him  who 
was  crucified  thereon,  it  stands  for  salvation  and  the 
triumph  of  character.  After  all,  it  is  not  some  remote 
and  far-away  symbol,  but  an  intimate  and  ever-present 
one.     Said  a  German  poet: 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 155 

"The  Cross  on  Golgotha  can  never  save  thy  soul, 
The  Cross  in  thine  own  heart  alone  can  make  thee  whole." 

To  the  man  or  woman  who  has  accepted  this  divine 
standard  that  witnesses  at  once  to  sacrifice  and  service, 
it  means  power,  the  imparted  power  of  the  world's  Re- 
deemer. Wherever  we  may  go,  in  any  part  of  the  civil- 
ized, or,  for  that  matter,  the  uncivilized  world,  there  this 
holy  symbol  has  its  place.  It  is  wrought  into  jeweled 
forms  and,  again,  it  is  cast  in  iron  as  the  badge  of  im- 
perial honor.  Round  the  world  for  the  days  of  this 
week,  in  every  language,  there  will  be  sung  and  said  the 
mighty  message  that  the  Cross  teaches.  Again,  man- 
kind will  bow  in  lowly  reverence  before  the  uplifted 
Christ,  in  fulfilment  of  His  own  spoken  word:  "I,  if  I 
be  lifted  up,  will  draw  all  men  unto  me." 

Has  there  ever  been  a  time  when  the  Cross  has  meant 
more  to  humanity  than  it  does  today?  Before  it,  selfish- 
ness and  self-interest  give  place  to  sacrifice  and  service. 
No  man  or  woman  who  recognizes  this  divine  symbol 
but  must  assume  the  obligations  it  implies.  It  is  in 
the  spirit  of  this  masterful  symbol  of  the  faith,  yes,  it 
is  in  the  presence  of  Him  who  is  the  highest  approxima- 
tion to  mankind  of  all  that  is  divine  and  holy,  that  we 
prostrate  ourselves  again,  and  with  hearts  rendered  sen- 
sitive to  its  high  claims,  we  rededicate  ourselves  to  the 
service  of  the  lowly  Nazarene,  and  reconsecrate  our- 
selves to  an  unselfish  service  to  our  fellows. 


•t    II    H 


JL56  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 


IMMORTALITY 

ONE  of  the  earliest  of  the  world's  greatest  writers 
asked  the  question,  "If  a  man  die,  shall  he  live 
again?"  It  is  a  question  that  has  been  asked  by  every 
age  and  by  every  people,  and  the  only  answer  that  has 
come  with  any  degree  of  authority  and  finality  was  given 
by  Him  who  declared :  "I  am  the  resurrection  and  the 
life;  he  that  believeth  in  me,  though  he  were  dead,  yet 
shall  he  live." 

Thinkers  and  philosophers  have  sought  by  the  most 
careful  study  of  nature  and  the  human  mind  to  give  an 
answer  that  would  adequately  meet  man's  hope  of  a 
future  life.  The  heavens  have  been  swept  by  the  prac- 
ticed eye  of  the  seer  and  the  astronomer,  and  the  lan- 
guage of  the  stars  has  been  interpreted  by  them,  but 
they  give  no  satisfying  answer.  The  earth,  with  its  store- 
house of  wonders,  has  been  traversed  from  pole  to  pole 
in  the  vain  search  after  that  which  would  reveal,  not 
only  the  character  of  its  Divine  Architect,  but  His  eternal 
purposes  concerning  life  beyond  the  grave.  Guesses  at 
truth  are  not  truth,  no  matter  how  apparently  accurate 
they  may  be.  To  assume  the  immortality  of  life  does 
not  establish  it  as  a  fact.  All  the  reasoning  of  Plato 
and  Aristotle  and  Socrates  will  not  and  cannot  satisfy  us. 
We  may  say  with  Addison :  "It  must  be  so ;  Plato,  thou 
reasonest  well,  else  whence  this  pleasing  hope,  this  fond 
desire,  this  longing  after  immortality  ?"  It  is  a  poor  un- 
satisfying comfort  that  the  great  American  orator  gave, 
as  he  stood  by  the  open  grave  of  his  brother :  "From  the 
voiceless  lips  of  the  unreplying  dead,  there  comes  no 
word,  but  in  the  night  of  death  hope  sees  a  star  and  lis- 
tening love  can  hear  the  rustle  of  an  angel's  wing."  ^ 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  157 

The  affirmation  of  Jesus  Christ  is  the  only  word 
spoken  with  certainty.  His  whole  ministry  was  an  illum- 
ination of  the  theme  of  the  resurrection.  He  came  to 
revive  the  despairing  yearnings  of  men.  He  came  to  lift 
man's  vision  to  a  loftier  conception  of  life  here  and  to 
touch  it  with  the  splendor  of  a  life  that  should  know  no 
ending.  The  angels  that  guarded  his  empty  tomb  de- 
clared :  "He  is  not  here ;  He  is  risen  as  He  said."  Shall 
we  not  believe,  as  we  stand  by  the  sealed  sepulchres  of 
our  loved  ones,  that  once  again  the  angels  of  the  resur- 
rection, His  messengers  to  men,  declare  concerning  our 
sacred  dead :     "They  are  not  here ;  they  are  risen." 

Mr.  Blaine  in  closing  a  great  utterance  delivered  be- 
fore the  Congress  of  the  United  States  on  the  martyred 
Garfield,  used  these  memorable  words,  as  he  described  the 
dying  sufferer :  "Let  us  believe  that  in  the  silence  of  the 
receding  world,  he  heard  the  great  waves  breaking  on 
a  farther  shore  and  felt  already  upon  his  wasted  brow 
the  breath  of  the  eternal  morning."  This  is  the  sublime 
expression  of  man's  hope,  but  we  submit  that  today,  per- 
haps as  never  before,  in  an  age  overshadowed  by  the 
sombre  clouds  of  war,  we  need  to  hear  anew  the  reassur- 
ing and  inspiring  message  of  the  risen  Christ:  "Because 
I  live,  ye  shall  live  also." 

>^     •?     H 

THE  SALT  OF  THE  EARTH 

"XT^E  ARE  the  salt  of  the  earth."  Two  words 
X  Christ  used  to  describe  the  essential  qualities 
of  His  followers,  "salt"  and  "Hght."  The  men  and 
women  who  accepted  His  principles  were  to  be  active 
agents    in    sweetening   and    preserving   human    society. 


158 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

We  are  talking  much  today  about  what  constitutes  the 
essentials  of  civilization.  Scholars  and  statesmen  are 
seeking  to  re-establish  human  relationships  upon  a  stab- 
ler and  surer  foundation  than  has  hitherto  existed.  The 
ideals  advanced  by  those  who  have  attempted  Utopian 
or  Brook  Farm  communities  have  signally  failed.  Our 
economists  have  sought  to  effect  well  conceived  systems 
or  readjustments  and  for  brief  periods  have  met  with 
moderate  success.  From  the  earliest  times  the  problem 
has  been  not  individual  salvation,  but  the  salvation  of 
society  as  a  whole.  Matthew  Arnold  was  nearer  the 
heart  of  the  matter  when  he  asserted  that  conduct  was 
three-fourths  of  life  and  that  the  value  of  any  system 
was  to  be  found  in  its  effect  upon  human  relationships. 
Today,  again,  we  are  driven  back  upon  the  fundamentals 
of  life  for  direction  in  restoring  a  broken,  disordered 
and  distracted  world.  No  one  with  half  a  wit  believes 
that  acts  of  Parliament  or  resolves  of  Congresses,  how- 
ever finely  expressed,  will  restore  the  world's  normal 
and  healthy  life.  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  in  large 
part  a  declaration  of  what  constitutes  the  security  and 
happiness  of  human  society.  It  is  in  itself  a  program  for 
bettering  human  conditions.  It  is  the  word  of  one  whose 
love  for  mankind  has  no  parallel  in  the  annals  of  men. 
Here  in  the  text  He  was  asserting  that  those  who  accept 
His  teachings  must  disclose  their  discipleship  in  becom- 
ing vital  factors  in  seasoning,  sweetening  and  preserving 
the  social  conditions  of  life.  Salt  has  a  large  and  uni- 
versal use.  So  valuable  is  it  that  the  imposition  of  a  tax 
upon  it  provoked  a  revolution  in  Rome.  Homer  speaks 
of  it  as  "divine,"  and  Plato  calls  it  "a  substance  dear  to 
the  gods."  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  essential  to  life 
itself.  Jesus  used  it  as  a  figure  to  describe  the  essential 
qualities  of  the  Christian.     To  season  the  life  of  the 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  159 

world  about  us,  to  render  it  wholesome  and  acceptable  is 
no  small  part  of  our  task.  Too  frequently  life  becomes 
flat  and  stale.  It  loses  its  zest  and  its  charm.  Money 
will  not  render  it  more  palatable,  frequently  it  does  the 
reverse.  A  life  that  has  the  seasoning  quality  of  salt, 
whether  its  beneficent  influence  is  exercised  in  the  work- 
room, the  office  or  the  home,  is  a  mighty  factor  in  main- 
taining the  happiness  and  contentment  of  men.  Salt  also 
sweetens,  it  dispels  that  which  makes  for  bitterness  and 
discontent.  Lincoln's  personality  with  its  fine  sweeten- 
ing influence  was  more  effective  to  this  nation  during 
the  dark  days  of  strife  than  all  the  combined  wisdom  of 
his  cabinet  and  all  the  resources  of  the  banks.  Again 
and  again  he  saved  a  critical  situation  through  the  exer- 
cise of  that  irrepressible  quality  in  his  nature  that  dis- 
pelled gloom  and  pessimism  and  provoked  cheerfulness 
and  hope.  Sour  Christians  are  impossible  apostles  of 
gloom ;  destroyers  of  cheer ;  wet  blankets  that  extinguish 
even  the  sparks  of  good  resolves ;  these  are  they  who 
darken  and  embitter  life.  They  shut  up  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven,  they  neither  go  in  themselves,  nor  do  they  suf- 
fer others  who  would  to  enter  in.  Just  now  we  need  a 
liberal  supply  of  men  and  women  who  have  in  themselves 
the  qualities  of  good,  wholesome  salt.  Pessimism,  fore- 
boding fear,  gloomy  prognostications,  these  we  have 
aplenty.  The  world  is  tobogganning  down  to  perdition, 
and  there  is  no  hope, — from  such  false  prophets,  good 
Lord  deliver  us.  Finally,  salt  preserves, — it  arrests  de- 
cay, it  is  life's  indispensable.  In  the  present  scheme  of 
things  we  supremely  need  men  and  women  of  this  sort. 
We  shall  not  make  the  world  better  by  keeping  within 
ourselves  for  home  and  personal  consumption  our  Chris- 
tian qualities.  There  are  some  mighty  bad  spots  in  our 
body  social  and  corporate,  but  they  will  not  be  healed  by 


160  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

mere  criticism  and  condemnation.  To  save  is  better  than 
to  destroy.  There  is  a  deal  of  ore  worth  saving  in  the 
rejected  and  neglected  slag  pile.  Human  refuse  is  a 
menace  unless  it  is  cleansed  and  rendered  wholesome, 
but  no  "Holier-than-thou"  method  will  do  much  to 
purify  it.  Our  service  must  lead  us  to  unattractive  as 
well  as  to  attractive  endeavors.  Jesus  came  to  save  that 
which  was  lost.  So  must  we,  but  this  means  being  as  the 
salt  of  the  earth. 

BROAD  OR  SUPERFICIAL? 

THERE  is  a  term  much  abused  in  our  common  speech 
today ;  everyone  who  holds  so-called  "liberal  views" 
or  who  treats  with  inconsideraation  the  old  and  well 
recognized  conventions  of  life,  is  called  "broad."  If 
a  man  is  unorthodox,  according  to  the  old  standards,  he 
is  essentially  a  "broad"  man.  If  he  winks  at  social  prac- 
tices that  hitherto  were  regarded  as  dubious  or  question- 
able, he  is  "broad  minded."  If  he  looks  upon  the  stage 
as  the  purveyor  of  all  sorts  and  kinds  of  plays,  legiti- 
mate and  illegitimate,  pure  and  impure,  with  a  naive  in- 
difference, regarding  these  things  as  in  some  sense  neces- 
sary, he  is  a  "broad"  man.  Again,  if  he  holds  no  particu- 
lar religious  faith  to  be  necessary  to  a  man's  salvation, 
but  hews  to  the  dictum  of  the  poet — 

"For  modes  of  faith  let  graceless  zealots  fight; 
His  can't  be  wrong  whose  life  is  in  the  right," 

why,  of  course,  he  is  a  generously  and  consistently 
"broad-minded  thinker."  If  the  old,  sacred  usages  and 
practices  that  have  stood  the  test  of  generations,  prac- 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  161 

tices  and  habits  of  life  upon  which  the  fathers  builded 
this  nation  more  wisely  than  they  knew,  if  these  things 
interfere  with  the  larger  liberty  of  the  individual  or  con- 
travene in  any  wise  the  fullest  and  freest  exercise  of 
what  he  regards  as  his  "personal  rights,"  why,  of  course, 
they  must  be  abandoned  and  relegated  to  the  attic  of 
forgetfulness. 

We  are  disposed  to  believe  the  term,  "broad,"  is  being 
overworked,  and  another  word  synonymous  with  it,  its 
true  yoke  fellow  in  strenuous  service,  is  "liberal."  Every- 
one who  is  strongly  self-assertive,  self-conceited  or  self- 
satisfied,  is  held  to  be  "liberal."  It  would  be  a  fair  ques- 
tion to  ask,  especially  with  reference  to  the  younger  gen- 
eration:   "Whither  are  we  drifting?" 

Miss  Repplier,  in  a  magazine  article,  writes  brilliantly 
and  sanely  on  "The  Repeal  of  Reticence,"  presenting  an- 
other phase  of  the  "broad-minded"  endeavor  to  break 
down  all  conventions  and  restrictions  and  to  make  the 
property  of  common  speech  in  school  room,  drawing 
room  and  church,  those  subjects  that  hitherto  were  re- 
garded as  of  such  a  character  as  to  find  their  best  and 
truest  expression  within  the  narrower  circle  of  the  home. 
If  we  are  all  bent  on  being  "broad"  and  "liberal"  in 
politics,  social  habits,  religion  and  the  rearing  of  children, 
let  us  take  heed  lest  our  so-called  breadth  and  liberality 
become  not  in  due  time  the  evidences  of  our  utter  super- 
ficiality. We  are  coming  to  the  conviction  that,  according 
to  the  modern  use  of  the  terms,  "broad,"  "liberal"  and 
"superficial,"  they  are  practically  synonymous. 

All  organized  society,  or  to  put  it  another  way,  all  civ- 
ilized society  must,  of  necessity,  be  controlled  by  well 
conceived  and  well  recognized  conventions.  A  religious, 
social  or  political  system  that  is  unregulated  is  chaotic, 
and  unworthy  of  the  respect  of  thinking  men  and  women. 


162  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

Another  aspect  of  this  question  is  suggested  by  our  duty 
to  our  neighbor;  that  is,  if  the  second  great  Command- 
ment still  has  binding  force ;  possibly  it  too  has  ceased  to 
be  operative  because  it  is  too  narrow.  Whether  I  will  or 
not,  I  am  compelled  to  recognize  certain  definite  and  fixed 
rules  or  conventions  of  life  that  relate  me  to  all  those 
whose  lives  I  touch. 

A  pretty  safe  rule  to  observe  is,  "None  of  us  liveth  to 
himself."  If  in  our  effort  for  a  "liberal"  or  "broad" 
interpretation  of  life  we  infringe  the  rights  of  other  peo- 
ple or  disturb  those  well  conceived  conventions  that  make 
for  wholesome  habits  and  peace,  we  are  simply  violators 
of  law  and  order,  trespassers  on  the  preserves  of  other 
folk. 

All  this  that  we  have  said  has  its  application  to  so 
many  things  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  enumerate  them. 
It  is  refreshing  to  meet  now  and  again  one  who  has  fixed 
convictions,  who  has  avoided  the  weather-vane  method 
of  judging  the  standards  of  life.  It  is  almost  a  thrilling 
experience  to  meet  one  who  is  reasonably  inflexible  upon 
great  fundamental  principles.  We  believe  that  we  are  to 
come  presently  to  a  time  that  is  to  witness  a  recrudes- 
cence of  the  old  gallantries  and  habits  of  refinement,  the 
old  and  decent  recognition  of  what  we  call  the  "sanctities 
of  life,"  the  sane  and  wholesome  observance  of  man's  re- 
lation to  God  and  his  obligations  to  his  fellows. 

PL      t^      ^ 

CONSISTENT  JUDGMENT 

WE  ARE  not  so  much  the  victims  of  environment 
as  we  are  the  creatures  of  opinion.  The  man  with 
a  will  can  combat  and  overcome  obstacles  that  rise  in  his 
pathway  to  hinder  and  embarrass  his  progress,  but  some 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 163 

of  the  strongest  men  fall  impotent  before  the  assaults  of 
that  subtle  thing  we  call  "public  opinion."  Men  have 
been  made  or  unmade,  quite  apart  from  any  virtues  or 
vices  they  had,  by  judgments,  fair  or  unfair,  that  ulti- 
mately lifted  them  to  supreme  heights  of  power  or  drove 
them  to  depths  of  despair. 

How  few  of  us  ever  give  serious  heed  to  the  judgments 
we  pass  upon  men  and  things.  With  the  barest  informa- 
tion or  knowledge,  we  swiftly  commend  or  condemn,  and 
few,  if  any  of  us,  exercise  this  opinion-making  power 
with  either  charity  or  Christian  consistency.  In  his  great 
poem,  "The  Bridge  of  Sighs,"  Thomas  Hood  describes 
one  who,  through  the  bitterness  of  human  judgment, 
sought  to  shut  out  forever  the  harsh  and  stern  criti- 
cisms that  had  embittered  the  very  springs  of  life  itself : 

"Mad  from  life's  history, 
Glad  to  death's  mystery. 
Swift  to  be  hurled — 
Anywhere,  anywhere, 
Out  of  the  world." 

He  closed  his  great  poem  with  an  appeal  for  a  larger 
sympathy  and  a  finer  charity  for  those  who  err.  Many 
men  and  women  walk  the  streets  of  the  city,  depressed 
and  saddened,  with  a  sense  of  utter  despair,  because  a 
harsh  and  unrelenting  human  judgment  has  robbed  them 
of  hope  and  filled  their  skies  with  leaden  clouds. 

The  habit  of  swift  and  ungenerous  judgment  fastens 
itself  upon  us,  and  unless  we  resist  it,  in  due  time  it 
becomes  an  incurable  malady.  Most  of  us  see  things  dis- 
proportionately or  partially.  He  was  right  who  wrote 
concerning  man's  judgment  of  God  that  which  has  like 
application  to  his  judgment  of  his  fellows : 


164 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

"One  part,  one  little  part  we  dimly  scan, 

Through  the  dark  medium  of  life's  feverish  dream. 
Yet  dare  arraign  the  whole  stupendous  plan, 
If  but  one  little  part  incongruous  seem." 

We  even  permit  our  children  to  cultivate  in  the  home 
the  habit  of  criticism,  based  largely  upon  a  formless  judg- 
ment. Everywhere,  in  church,  in  club,  in  office,  in  society, 
and  on  the  street,  we  live  in  an  atmosphere  of  ungenerous 
opinions  and  false  or  partial  judgments.  Somehow,  this 
seems  to  be  peculiarly  true  in  the  present  hour.  If  we 
could  only  learn  to  cultivate  the  habit  of  knowing  the 
facts  before  we  speak,  how  much  less  frequently  we 
would  express  our  hasty  opinions  and  how  much  freer 
the  world  would  be  from  the  blighting  and  blasting  in- 
fluence of  informed  and  uninformed  judgments. 

"Judge   not  according  to  the  appearance,  but  judge 
righteous  judgment." 

Let  us  never  forget  that  the  most  perfect  life  that  was 
ever  lived  was  condemned  and  nailed  upon  a  cross, 
through  a  conspiracy  of  malign  influences,  the  direct  issue 
of  the  false  judgment  of  selfish  and  unholy  men.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  almost  every  disorder  that  has  disturbed 
the  world's  tranquility  and  ushered  in  periods  of  unrest 
and  grave  disorder  has  had  its  genesis  in  this  same  cause. 

The  Christian  Church  has  not  been  immune.  Indeed, 
at  times  it  has  seemed  to  promote  the  spirit  of  criticism 
and  harsh  judgment.  If  this  is  an  age  of  reconstruction, 
it  were  well  for  us  to  steel  ourselves  against  this  tend- 
ency, never  more  conspicuously  present  in  the  world  than 
now.  We  are  organizing  many  societies,  but  we  supreme- 
ly need  one  that  will  have  as  its  motto  text,  "Thou  art 
inexcusable,  O  man,  whosoever  thou  art  that  judgest; 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  165 

for  wherein  thou  judgest  another,  thou  condemnest  thy- 
self." 

One  of  the  finest  expressions  of  kindly  judgment  with 
which  we  are  familiar  was  the  late  Dean  Farrar's  state- 
ment concerning  the  proposal  to  give  Darwin  a  place  of 
sepulture  in  Westminster  Abbey.  Said  he :  "I  would 
rather  take  my  chances  with  the  great  philosopher  in  the 
future  than  with  those  who  would  close  the  doors  of  the 
great  Abbey  to  the  mortal  dust  of  England's  greatest 
and  most  original  thinker." 

^         •t         ^ 

MISUNDERSTOOD 

EVERY  now  and  again  we  come  across  some  disap- 
pointed and  disillusioned  human  life  that  has  been 
wrecked  upon  the  rocks,  indicated  on  life's  navigation 
chart  as  "misunderstood."  The  average  man  or  woman 
means  to  do  right.  Of  course  there  are  those  who,  for 
selfish  or  purely  commercial  purposes  will  sell  their  souls 
for  a  "mess  of  pottage."  We  are  not  thinking  of  them, 
but  rather  of  that  other  large  group,  that  in  word  and 
deed  try  to  do  what  they  believe  to  be  right,  and  yet  are 
victims  of  misinterpretation  and  misunderstanding.  If 
we  could  reveal  the  skeleton  that  lurks  in  many  a  closet 
of  many  a  home  we  would  find  it  bearing  the  ominous 
label — "misunderstood."  One  of  the  tragic  things  about 
all  this  is  the  fact  that  those  who  either  ignorantly  or 
maliciously  are  guilty  of  misunderstanding  their  friends 
or  neighbors,  yes,  their  own  immediate  kinsfolk,  are 
rarely  willing  or  ready  to  undo  the  mischief  their  mis- 
taken interpretation  efifects. 

A  wilful  but  generously  impulsive  boy  in  a  household 


166  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

is  constantly  the  victim  of  misinterpretation  or  misrepre- 
sentation by  those  of  his  own  fireside,  until  at  length, 
driven  by  despair  and  discouragement  he  breaks  away 
from  all  restraints,  and  plunges  headlong  into  excesses 
of  which  he  had  never  even  dreamed ;  with  the  inevitable 
consequences — a  shipwrecked  life  and  a  blasted  career. 
If  we  could  dig  down  beneath  the  bravado  and  callous- 
ness of  some  of  the  inmates  of  our  penal  institutions  we 
would  discover  qualities  of  mind  and  heart  that  were  fine 
and  noble,  but  that  had  been  vitiated  and  perverted 
through  misunderstanding  and  ungenerous  misinterpreta- 
tion. Yes,  and  again,  if  we  could  get  at  the  poisoned 
springs  of  many  a  domestic  tragedy,  of  which  unoffend- 
ing little  children  are  the  saddened  victims,  we  would 
find  that  like  causes  were  the  insidious  and  baleful  germs 
that  effected  the  final  destruction  of  the  home  sanctuary. 
Perhaps — who  can  tell?  behind  the  present  awful  world- 
struggle  that  is  wrecking  nations  and  undoing  the  work 
of  generations  of  Christian  civilization,  resides  this  ghoul- 
ish spectre — misunderstood.  What  a  situation  confronts 
us !  What  a  mighty  cleavage  separates  the  children  of 
earth  today !  There  is  an  aspect  that  this  form  and  prac- 
tice of  wilful  misunderstanding  assumes  that  is  both 
wicked  and  almost  unpardonable.  It  is  that  habit  in- 
dulged in  by  those  whose  intelligence  should  guarantee  a 
fairer  method,  that  discloses  itself  in  accepting  super- 
ficial impressions  or  unconfirmed  reports  and  clothes  them 
with  all  the  evidences  of  genuineness  and  authenticity. 
Men  and  women  have  been  burned  at  the  stake  upon  such 
malicious  misrepresentations.  Scandal  in  its  most  mal- 
evolent forms  has  had  its  birth  in  minds  diseased  or  per- 
verted through  long  indulgence  in  this  guilty  practice. 
Now,  as  never  before,  there  should  be  a  vigorous  crusade 
instituted  against  such  as  wilfully  misjudge  and  misin- 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  167 

terpret  the  words  and  deeds  of  their  fellows.  Sometimes 
in  hours  of  pessimism  we  hear  and  heed  the  poet's 
lament : 

"Oh,  the  rarity 
Of  Christian  charity 
Under  the  sun," 

and  we  yearn  for  the  ushering  in  of  that  day,  long  de- 
ferred, when  reputations  shall  not  be  made  or  unmade 
by  false  judgments,  nor  the  counterfeit  pass  current  for 
the  real. 

It  takes  strength  of  character  to  undo  a  wrong  or  an 
injustice;  it  takes  unchallenged  manhood  or  womanhood 
to  repair  the  breach ;  yes,  it  takes  something  of  the  qual- 
ity of  Him  who  hung  on  the  tree,  to  recover  the  lost 
sheep,  driven  afield  perhaps  through  our  ungenerosity  or 
misjudgment;  but  before  the  world  shall  again  be  made 
normal,  these  qualities  must  be  re-established  in  the  hu- 
man heart. 

*t    *?    *t 

AN  INFORMED  MINISTRY 

IT  WOULD  be  a  sad  thing  for  the  Church  if  in  this 
day  of  mighty  changes  it  did  not  readjust  and  readapt 
its  machinery  to  meet  the  new  and  unprecedented  con- 
ditions. Some  with  limited  vision  seem  to  think  that  the 
Church  as  an  institution  is  to  play  a  smaller  part  in  the 
new  age  that  lies  ahead.  There  are  even  a  few  who  think 
that  it  will  lose  its  place  of  power  and  distinction  and 
ultimately  pass  away.  Such  a  thing  will  never  be  so  long 
as  religion  holds  its  sovereign  place  in  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  men.    The  Frenchman  was  right;  "man  is  in- 


168 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

curably  religious,"  and  religion,  whatever  form  of  ex- 
pression it  may  take,  demands  a  channel  for  its  transmis- 
sion and  interpretation. 

Our  concern  is  not  for  the  permanence  of  the  Church, 
but  rather  for  its  larger  efficiency.  There  is  an  increas- 
ing demand  for  a  ministry  that  is  sympathetically  in  touch 
with  the  living  issues  and  problems  of  the  hour,  and  there 
are  multitudes  of  sane  laymen  over  the  land  who  believe 
that,  if  the  ministry  is  to  function  in  any  large  way  in 
the  days  that  lie  ahead,  the  curricula  of  the  seminaries 
where  ministers  are  trained  must  be  vastly  changed.  It 
would  sometimes  seem  that  the  training  of  ministers  is 
designed  solely  to  meet  their  own  peculiar  and  profes- 
sional demands  and  largely  for  their  own  personal  satis- 
faction. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that,  in  the  new  testing  days  upon 
which  we  have  entered,  demands  will  be  made  upon  the 
ministry  such  as  it  has  never  before  known.  After  all, 
Paul's  conception  was  the  reasonable  and  sane  one.  He 
sought  to  be  made  all  things  to  all  men,  and  his  power 
was  in  no  small  part  due  to  the  fact  that  he  had  lived 
his  life  as  a  tent-maker  and  knew  not  only  man's  spiritual 
aspirations,  but  as  well  the  pressure  of  those  deadening 
influences  that  tend  to  impair  and  destroy  his  spiritual 
vision. 

A  minister  must  be  a  diagnostician,  and  diagnosis  is  the 
result  of  intense  personal  observation  and  study.  We 
have  been  getting  too  much  from  books  and  too  little 
from  human  life  and  experience.  The  man  of  the  street 
thinks  of  the  minister  as  living  in  another  world,  whose 
concerns  have  to  do  with  some  "far  ofif,  divine  event." 
We  do  not  believe  that  spiritual  realities  and  concerns 
are  unrelated  to  present  conditions  and  problems  of  life. 
On  the  contrary,  we  believe  that  most  of  our  present 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  169 

world  problems  must  find  their  explanation  and  solution 
through  a  clarified  spiritual  vision. 

Obviously,  the  Church  can  no  longer  hold  the  confi- 
dence of  men,  simply  as  the  purveyor  of  a  spiritual  pab- 
ulum administered  once  a  week.  It  must  function  in  all 
human  concerns,  and  to  do  this  it  must  have  a  ministry 
that  is  intelligently  and  sympathetically  informed,  and 
this  means  more  of  the  practical  and  less  of  the  theoret- 
ical. It  were  well  if  every  applicant  for  Holy  Orders 
were  compelled  to  take  a  three  years'  course  in  some  busi- 
ness enterprise,  and  in  lieu  of  this,  that  some  of  the 
studies  now  prescribed  be  omitted  from  his  theological 
training.  If  the  Master  knew  what  was  in  men,  it  was 
because  he  walked  with  them,  talked  with  them,  and  lived 
with  them.  He  even  followed  the  trade  of  an  artisan, 
and  it  is  this  likeness  to  the  common  toiler  that  makes 
Him  universally  loved  and  reverenced. 

There  are  doubtless  men  in  business  life  today  who, 
with  their  ripe  and  full  experience,  might  become  great 
prophets  and  teachers,  exercising  a  ministry  of  incal- 
culable power  in  and  through  the  Christian  Church.  One 
such  came  to  us  recently,  trained  on  the  "ground  floor," 
strengthened  and  enriched  by  his  war  experience,  fitted 
in  mind  and  heart  to  lift  men  to  higher  levels  of  thinking 
and  living.  Must  such  an  one  be  compelled  to  begin  anew 
a  course  of  training,  the  very  prosecution  of  which  would 
hinder  him  in  proclaiming  the  truth  which  he  has  con- 
sciously experienced? 

The  demand  of  a  trained  ministry,  adapted  to  twen- 
tieth century  life  with  its  complex  problems,  is  urgent  and 
insistent.  It  was  Paul  the  tent-maker,  who  became  Paul 
the  mighty  Apostle.  It  was  Jesus  the  carpenter  who  from 
His  uplifted  cross  drew  all  men  unto  Him.  It  is  the  min- 
ister today  who  has  lived  in  the  midst  of  life's  surging 


170  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

problems,  experienced  something  of  its  stern  hardships, 
witnessed  something  of  the  seductive  allurements  of 
temptation,  felt  the  enervating  strain  of  pain  and  sorrow, 
plumbed  the  depths  of  human  sin  and  its  resultant  suffer- 
ing, who  is  best  fitted  to  interpret  to  his  time  those 
eternal  truths,  upon  which  is  builded  man's  hope  of  sal- 
vation here  and  hereafter. 

*t    *s    *? 
THE  GREAT  QUEST 

THE  greatest  search  of  the  world  is  for  the  larger 
hfe. 

"'Tis  life  whereof  our  souls  are  scant. 
More  life  and  fuller  that  we  want," 

This  search  for  the  larger  life  begins  with  the  dawn 
of  consicousness.  The  outstretched  baby  hands  are  feel- 
ing after  the  expanding  life.  The  boy  and  girl  in  the 
school  are  studying  that  they  may  know  life  and  have  a 
larger  appreciation  of  its  values.  The  man  or  woman 
in  the  activities  of  the  world  is  looking  for  the  larger 
expansion  of  life  and  the  greater  fulfilment  of  its  priv- 
ileges and  opportunities.  It  is  a  curious  thing  that  people 
sometimes  think  that  because  Jesus  is  called  the  "Man 
of  Sorrows,"  therefore  he  did  not  seek  to  bring  to  the 
world  the  richer  and  sweeter  things  of  being.  How  often 
we  misconceive  religion  in  this  way  and  think  of  it  as 
something  that  is  designed  to  overshadow  rather  than  to 
illuminate  hfe's  pathway.  How  many  young  people  be- 
gin with  the  notion  that  religion  depresses  and  represses, 
that  it  is  a  "wet  blanket"  designed  to  hamper  and  em- 
barrass them  in  the  fulfilm.ent  of  their  joys  and  occupa- 
tions. 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 171 

As  we  have  studied  without  bias  or  partiahty  the  great 
writers  of  the  world,  we  have  observed  that  the  really 
and  truly  great,  one  and  all,  seek  to  bring  a  contribu- 
tion to  the  enrichment  of  the  world.  Only  now  and  then 
we  come  across  one,  soured  and  embittered,  who  can 
see  no  good  in  life  and  who  has  no  consciousness  of  ob- 
ligation to  add  to  its  enrichment.  It  is  a  strange  thing, 
but  true,  that  men  and  women,  no  matter  what  their 
genius,  who  take  this  view  of  life,  come  to  its  close  with 
a  sense  of  failure  and  unmitigated  disappointment. 

A  notable  example  of  this  is  found  in  one  of  the  great- 
est of  Frenchmen,  Amiel,  whose  only  literary  contribu- 
tion, from  a  mind  overflowing  with  wisdom,  was  his 
fragmentary  "Journal,"  and  of  what  does  it  speak?  Dis- 
appointment, disillusionment,  failure.  With  everything 
to  encourage  and  inspire,  with  a  mind  of  extraordinary 
brilliance,  he  misconceived  life.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
have  been  those  with  limited  opportunities,  perhaps 
poor  in  purse,  like  Robert  Burns,  born  out  of  what  the 
world  esteems  "rank  soil,"  and  yet  they  have  brought  to 
humanity  mighty  contributions  to  enrich  and  enlarge  life. 

None  is  greater  in  this  respect  than  He  who  uttered 
the  words :  "I  am  come  that  they  might  have  life  and 
that  they  might  have  it  more  abundantly."  It  was  not 
merely  to  fulfil,  but  to  fill  full,  that  He  came.  He  saw 
in  every  man,  unrealized,  and  oftentimes  unrecognized 
capacities.  He  was  poor,  and  wandered  without  a  home, 
and  yet  He  has  done  more  to  enrich  the  homes  of  men 
and  to  bless  them  with  a  larger  vision  than  any  other 
who  has  ever  lived.  Let  us  not  misconceive  His  high 
purpose.  His  religion  is  the  religion  of  the  larger  out- 
look, the  fuller  life,  the  richer  joy,  the  more  certain 
destiny. 

«^     >?    •». 


172  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 


RECONSTRUCTION 

RECONSTRUCTION  is  the  word  by  which  men 
conjure  today.  Recently  we  listened  with  amaze- 
ment and  admiration  to  one  of  America's  great  surgeons 
as  he  described  the  far-reaching  changes  in  his  field  of 
service  that  were  to  follow  the  war.  He  spoke  of  the 
wonderful  advance  made  in  the  treatment  of  human  ills, 
and  of  the  well  nigh  miraculous  repairs  effected  where 
bodies  had  been  bruised  and  broken  on  the  battlefield. 
What  he  said  presented  one  aspect  of  the  program  of 
reconstruction. 

One  of  our  captains  of  industry  has  recently  declared 
that  new  standards  of  value  are  to  be  set  up  and  that 
hereafter  a  man  will  be  known  and  honored,  not  by  what 
he  has  in  the  way  of  wealth,  but  what  he  gives  of  him- 
self and  of  his  means  in  the  service  of  his  fellows.  Large 
corporations  and  industries  that  have  hitherto  been  laws 
unto  themselves  are  beginning  to  feel  the  new  pressure, 
and  what  will  be  evolved  as  the  result  of  all  the  new  con- 
ceptions and  theories  of  human  relationships,  no  living 
prophet  may  venture  to  forecast.  Already  there  is  uni- 
versally evident  a  new  expression,  to  be  followed  by  a 
new  practice,  of  the  old  and  hitherto  misunderstood 
notions  of  human  brotherhood.  Human  brotherhood 
has  been  a  fine  phrase  that  we  have  taken  lightly  on  our 
lips  and  used  more  as  a  shibboleth  than  as  a  basic  prin- 
ciple governing  our  relations  to  our  fellows. 

How  many  men  and  women  there  are  in  all  the  depart- 
ments of  our  life  who,  during  this  war  period,  have 
literally  found  themselves  in  undertaking  forms  of  serv- 
ice that  heretofore  they  regarded  as  utterly  alien  to 
them?    We  were  talking  recently  with  a  group  of  women 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 173 

who  were  immersed  in  Red  Cross  work  and  we  heard 
one  of  them  thoughtfully  say:  "When  the  war  is  over 
and  there  is  no  more  demand  for  this  kind  of  work,  what 
are  we  going  to  do?  There  is  no  doubt  about  it,  now 
that  we  have  become  accustomed  to  this  sort  of  thing, 
we  shall  have  to  find  employment  of  some  kind  to  satisfy 
our  aspirations  and  our  consciences."  Yes,  this  is  true,  to 
lapse  back  into  a  condition  of  lethargic  indifference  or 
to  become  unresponsive  (as  we  have  all  too  frequently 
in  the  past)  to  the  bitter  cry  of  the  children,  or  the  pain 
and  misery  of  the  down-trodden  and  oppressed,  seems 
unthinkable  and  impossible.  The  world's  heart  has  been 
rendered  sensitive  by  the  world's  tragic  needs,  and  men 
and  women  of  every  class  and  kind  have  engaged  in 
multifarious  ways  in  a  beneficent  service  that  has  literally 
made  "the  whole  world  kin." 

We  used  to  think  of  our  obligations  as  limited  and 
restricted  to  our  own  neighborhood ;  today  we  are  think- 
ing of  them  as  having  to  do  with  peoples  and  races  of 
every  name,  and  a  cry  from  suffering  Armenia  is  as 
readily  heard  and  answered  as  one  from  France  or,  in- 
deed, as  one  from  our  own  boys  at  the  front.  We  have 
not  only  been  learning  something  of  geography  and  his- 
tory and  national  developments;  we  have  been  learning 
the  meaning  of  the  universal  language  of  the  human 
heart,  the  language  that  requires  no  interpreter  and  no 
translator,  but  is  understood  of  all  men.  The  get-to- 
gether spirit  has  spread  round  the  world. 

We  wish  we  had  the  genius  of  prophecy  at  such  a  time 
as  this,  but  with  our  limited  vision  shall  we  not  say  that 
human  sympathies  have  been  revitalized,  and  Christian 
theories  have  been  translated  into  all  forms  of  Christian 
service?  Philanthropy  has  enlarged  its  horizons  and 
broadened  its  scope ;  even  the  selfish  corporation  has  re- 


174  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

covered  its  soul  and  been  taught,  as  never  before,  its 
responsibilities  and  obligations  to  its  faithful  servants. 
Insular  religious  corporations  have  been  taking  down 
their  ecclesiastical  walls,  built  largely  out  of  their  own 
conceits.  The  rich  have  ceased  to  patronize  the  poor, 
and  the  poor  to  regard  with  suspicion  the  rich.  The 
divine  right  of  kings  has  given  way  to  the  divine  right 
of  the  people,  and  all  around  the  world  men  and  women 
are  lifting  their  eyes  to  behold  the  new  morning  that  shall 
usher  in  the  redemption  for  which  Jesus  Christ  lived  and 
died. 

Nothing  has  been  more  conspicuously  evident  during 
these  years  of  suffering  than  the  larger  recognition  of 
the  place  of  the  Man  of  Nazareth  in  all  the  concerns  of 
man.  He  came  to  pluck  the  sting  of  death,  but  let  us 
never  forget  He  also  came  to  give  a  new  inspiration  and 
interpretation  to  life.  If  "His  pierced  hand  has  lifted 
the  gates  of  empires  from  their  hinges  and  turned  the 
streams  of  centuries  from  their  courses,"  then,  today, 
His  pierced  hand  is  opening  wide  the  gates  of  a  new 
life,  through  which  the  children  of  men  are  to  pass,  to 
learn  the  larger  meaning  of  Christian  comradeship,  and 
to  interpret  to  each  other  anew  the  high  claims  of  selfless 
devotion  to  the  common  weal. 

"THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  INARTICULATE" 

''/ttshOU  art  not  far  from  the  kingdom  of  God."  In 
JL  one  of  the  most  striking  books  which  the  war  pro- 
duced, Donald  Hankey's  "Student  in  Arms,"  he  has 
a  suggestive  chapter  under  the  caption,  "The  Religion  of 
the  Inarticulate."    His  intimate  contact  with  the  men  in 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  175 

the  trenches  and  in  the  field  led  him  to  the  unfailing  con- 
viction that  there  were  thousands  of  sincere  and  earnest 
men  whose  religious  faith  was  clear  and  positive,  but 
who,  for  one  reason  or  another,  had  never  accepted  or 
formulated  their  belief  in  a  specific  creed.  Again  he  dis- 
covered others  who,  for  mental  or  other  reasons,  were 
either  unable  or  unwilling  to  formulate  their  religious 
convictions  in  any  form  of  words.  It  was  Tennyson  who 
once  said  that  there  are  thoughts  that  lie  "too  deep  for 
sound  or  form."  It  is  unquestionably  true  that  to  great 
multitudes  of  men  and  women  the  traditional  forms  in 
which  religion  has  been  expressed  are  unsatisfac- 
tory, inadequate  or  meaningless.  Much  as  we  believe 
in  the  value  of  some  definite  form  or  expression  of  faith 
for  the  purposes  of  corporate  worship,  and  also  for  the 
clearer  expression  of  individual  belief,  we  are  bound  to 
think  that  the  day  has  gone  by  when  a  man  may  be 
charged  with  lack  of  religious  conviction  or  faith  because 
he  can  find  no  form  of  words  in  which  to  give  it  its  larg- 
est expression.  Obviously  necessary  as  it  is  that  there 
should  be  "modes  of  faith"  for  the  larger  conservation  of 
the  things  of  corporate  worship,  we  are  being  forced  to 
recognize  today  the  unquestioned  sincerity  of  those,  who 
for  one  reason  or  another  have  never  been  able  to  ar- 
ticulate that  which  they  believe.  In  the  face  of  this,  let 
us  also  say  that  we  believe  the  time-honored  creeds  of 
Christendom  are  to  continue  to  hold  their  place  of  great 
importance,  and  that  the  well-defined  organization  of  the 
Christian  Church  is  to  continue  on  its  way  with  probably 
greater  efficiency  in  the  days  that  are  to  come  than  ever 
before. 

That  Jesus  recognized  the  validity  of  an  inarticulate 
faith  is  repeatedly  disclosed  in  his  dealings  with  men 
and  women.     In  the  interview  from  which  our  text  is 


176  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

taken  He  was  answering  a  rather  critical  scribe  who  had 
come  to  Him  with  the  query,  "Which  is  the  first  com- 
mandment of  all?"  In  response  to  this  Jesus  had  set 
forth  in  a  simple  way  that  which  He  regarded  as  the 
fundamental  of  religious  faith,  namely,  "Thou  shalt  love 
the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart  and  with  all  thy 
soul  and  with  all  thy  mind  and  with  all  thy  strength" 
and  "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  The 
record  says,  "When  Jesus  saw  that  he  answered  dis- 
creetly He  said  unto  him.  Thou  art  not  far  from  the 
Kingdom  of  God."  The  situation  here  presented  is  not 
an  uncommon  one.  There  are  doubtless  scores  and  scores 
of  sincere  men  and  women  who  modestly  charge  them- 
selves with  being  unreligious  because,  forsooth,  they  do 
not  subscribe  to  some  particular  party  shibboleth,  or  be- 
cause they  are  related  to  the  public  offices  of  religion  in  a 
purely  nominal  and  inconspicuous  way.  We  are  bound 
to  think  that  many  such  undervalue  their  Christian  con- 
victions or  faith,  or  whatever  they  please  to  call  it,  be- 
cause they  subscribe  to  the  religion  of  the  inarticulate. 
We  hold  no  brief  for  those  who  believe  that  religion, 
either  public  or  private,  demands  nothing  of  definiteness 
in  its  creeds  or  systems.  On  the  other  hand,  we  contend 
that  there  are  probably  multitudes  of  excellent  men  and 
women  outside  the  pale  of  the  Christian  Church,  who  are 
there  because  they  consistently  believe  that  fellowship 
with  the  things  of  religion  makes  imperative  subscrip- 
tion to  and  acceptance  of  its  prescribed  forms.  We  also 
profoundly  believe  that  the  loss  of  these  people  who  are 
not  far  from  the  kingdom  of  God  in  their  individual 
conceptions  of  religious  faith  or  their  exemplification 
thereof,  is  one  of  the  greatest  the  Christian  Church  sus- 
tains. In  the  midst  of  the  world-confusions  and  the  wide 
variety  of  opinions  as  to  what  constitutes  the  essentials 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 177 

of  religion,  the  charity  which  Jesus  exercised  towards 
the  questioning  scribe  needs  to  be  widely  recognized. 
There  are  unquestionably  the  great  footing  stones  of  re- 
ligion that  will  not  and  cannot  be  dislodged.  On  the  other 
hand,  with  fine  generosity  and  a  proper  regard  for  the 
variety  of  minds  with  which  the  Church  has  to  do,  it 
were  well  that  we  manifested  during  these  critical  days 
an  attitude  of  genuine  kindliness  and  Christian  courtesy 
towards  those  who  hold  the  religion  of  the  inarticulate. 
Of  such  shall  we  not  say,  "They  are  not  far  from  the 
Kingdom  of  God"  ?  To  such  shall  we  not  open  wide  the 
gateway  of  the  temple  that  in  its  broad  charity  recog- 
nizes goodness  in  every  form  and  seeks  to  reveal  to 
men  the  way  that  leadeth  up  to  life  eternal? 

K     n     ^ 

IMAGINATION 

*'  TV'EEP  this  forever  in  the  imagination  of  the  thoughts 
i\.  of  the  heart  of  thy  people  and  prepare  their  heart 
unto  thee."  This  is  a  king's  prayer  for  his  people,  for 
their  continuance  in  a  pure  religious  thought  and  habit. 
It  is  of  peculiar  interest  to  note  how  much  the  Bible  as 
a  book,  emphasizes  the  heart  element  in  religion — "As  a 
man  thinketh  in  his  heart  so  is  he";  "Out  of  the  heart 
are  the  issues  of  life";  "With  the  heart  man  believeth." 
Scattered  through  Old  and  New  Testaments  the  writers 
give  peculiar  distinction  to  the  heart  in  the  practice  of 
the  religious  life.  We  commonly  accept  the  heart  as  the 
seat  of  the  emotions  and  of  the  affections,  hence  it  is 
the  inspiration  of  the  imagination,  and  the  imagination 
plays  a  conspicuous  part  in  the  religious  thought  and  life 
of  men  and  women  the  world  over.  It  is  curious  again 
to  note  that  the  dominant  religious  systems  of  the  world 


178 EVEriYDAY  RELIGION 

have  proceeded  from  the  Orient,  the  land  of  imagination, 
and  they  have  made  the  greatest  headway  with  peoples 
whose  Hves  were  most  responsive  to  those  things  that 
appeal  to  the  heart.  We  have  repeatedly  heard  men  say 
that  they  could  not  accept  a  religious  faith  unless  it  made 
its  appc^al  to  their  heads;  in  other  words,  what  they 
soug;Vil  was,  to  work  out  their  religious  faith  through 
rriental  processes,  very  largely  as  some  mathematical 
problem  is  worked  out. 

The  man  who  eliminates  the  imagination  and  the  heart 
element  from  his  religious  Hfe  has  closed  the  avenues 
of  approach  to  his  soul  and  rendered  religion  an  impos- 
sible thing.  We  remember  that  Frederick  Robertson, 
the  greatest  preacher  in  England  for  over  a  century,  de- 
clared that  no  amount  of  argument  in  the  Christian  pul- 
pit, in  his  judgment,  had  ever  conduced  to  the  saving  of 
a  soul.  I  believe  profoundly  that  my  mind  has  come  to 
co-operate  with  my  heart  and  my  imagination  in  my  re- 
ligious life,  but  I  am  quite  clear  in  my  conviction  that  my 
mind,  apart  from  my  heart  and  imagination,  is  utterly  in- 
capable of  receiving  the  highest  impressions  of  religion. 
Jesus  Christ  makes  His  appeal,  there  can  be  no  question 
about  it,  to  the  heart  and  to  the  imagination.  I  can  con- 
ceive of  Him  as  the  greatest  figure  in  human  history  and 
my  mind  can  accord  Him  the  transcendent  place  as  a 
religious  teacher  and  philosopher.  Among  all  the  great 
founders  and  teachers  of  religion  He  stands  pre-eminent. 
No  one  disputes  this.  Even  the  great  German  philoso- 
pher, Richter,  declared  that  with  His  pierced  hand  He 
lifted  the  gates  of  empire  from  theii  hinges  and  turned 
the  streams  of  centuries  from  their  courses.  But  all 
this  conception  of  Him  will  not  make  Renan,  the  bril- 
liant Frenchman,  accept  the  Man  of  Nazareth  as  his  own 
personal  Master  and  Saviour.    It  is  the  winsome  person 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  179 

of  Christ,  r,part  from  all  His  teachings,  the  living  Ex- 
emplar ct  the  highest  teachings  that  have  been  brought  to 
nien,  the  gentle,  ministering,  self-effacing  Christ,  that 
Vnakes  the  irresistible  appeal  to  our  inmost  consciousness. 
I  may  be  bewildered  by  His  teachings  and  confounded 
and  confused  by  the  miraculous  element  in  His  life,  but 
all  the  processes  of  reason  apart  from  the  co-operation 
of  the  heart  are  ineffective  to  give  Him  place  in  the  inner 
shrine  of  my  soul  and  to  make  me  cry  out  before  Him, 
"My  Lord  and  my  God."  After  all,  it  is  incomprehen- 
sible that  the  Divine  should  reduce  himself  to  the  com- 
pass of  the  human  mind  rather  than  to  the  limitless  em- 
brace of  the  human  heart.  You  have  been  going  on  your 
vi'ay  from  year  to  year,  saying  to  yourself :  "Some  day 
I  will  be  able  to  understand  all  this  teaching;  some  day 
I  will  be  able  to  be  a  Christian  disciple  like  other  folk" ; 
but  I  venture  to  say  to  you  that,  if  that  "some  day"  is 
to  be  determined  by  the  mere  conviction  of  your  mind, 
when  this  Jesus  of  Nazareth  shall  lay  His  claim  upon 
your  purely  intellectual  life,  it  is  improbable  that  you  will 
ever  be  able  to  receive  Him  for  what  He  claims  Himself 
to  be.  The  finest  interpreter  of  the  Master-life  in  the 
New  Testament  is  the  great-hearted  John — different 
from  all  other  recitals  of  this  Master-life  is  his  gospel. 
He  did  not  seek  to  interpret  to  men  the  physical  life  of 
the  Master,  nor  to  give  a  synopsis  of  His  daily  tasks ; 
he  left  this  to  other  writers  more  capable  than  himself. 
What  he  sought  to  do  was,  to  reveal  to  the  human  heart 
the  divine  Master  of  Men.  It  was  this  same  Christ  who 
declared  that  only  they  who  became  as  little  children 
could  enter  the  Kingdom  of  heaven,  and  what  did  He 
mean?  Was  it  not  that  the  child  was  controlled  by  the 
imagination,  with  the  heart  the  dominant  factor  in  its 
life,  loving,  trusting,  confident,  unfailing? 


180  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 


FALSE  RECKONING 

THERE  is  a  great  tendency  with  us,  especially  at  this 
critical  time,  to  unduly  overestimate  our  own  im- 
portance in  the  large  scheme  of  things.  Occasionally  the 
sudden  death  of  some  outstanding  figure  causes  a  tem- 
porary flurry  with  its  accompanying  short-lived  panic, 
but  we  generally  rise  from  these  experiences  with  a  larger 
consciousness  of  our  folly  and  stupidity.  No  one  is  alto- 
gether indispensable ;  even  a  Von  Hindenburg  may  prove 
but  a  colossal  wooden  image  and  his  retirement  but  an 
incident  of  passing  interest. 

Luther's  death  did  not  hinder  the  progress  of  a  vast 
reformation,  nor  did  the  assassin's  bullet  which  slew  a 
Lincoln  halt  or  hinder  the  mighty  plans  of  a  reconstructed 
and  reunited  nation.  No,  our  tendency  to  overvaluation 
of  human  agencies  is  altogether  disproportionate.  We 
recall  that  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  once  said,  on  viewing 
the  splendor  of  Trinity  Church,  Boston,  "so  all  this  de- 
pends upon  a  half  inch  of  larynx  in  one  man's  throat." 
He  was,  of  course,  referring  to  the  matchless  genius  of 
Phillips  Brooks.  But  God  does  not  leave  His  cause  in 
the  world  without  witnesses,  and  even  the  death  of  a 
Brooks  does  not  restrict  or  retard  the  ever  expanding 
kingdom  of  righteousness.  The  great  prophet,  Elijah, 
had  experienced  a  severe  defeat,  a  soulless  king  with  his 
profligate  queen  had  seemingly  destroyed  the  efliciency  of 
his  work  and  dissipated  the  splendid  influences  of  the 
church.  It  was  while  in  a  deep  melancholy  and  a  con- 
dition of  depression  that  Elijah  cried  out:  "I  only  am 
left,  and  they  seek  my  life  to  take  it  away."  The  an- 
swer to  this  expression  of  too  great  self-reliance  and  self- 
importance  was :    "Yet  I  have  left  me  seven  thousand  in 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  181 

Israel,  all  the  knees  which  have  not  bowed  to  Baal,"  and, 
with  this  stern  reminder,  God  sent  the  disheartened,  self- 
important  prophet  back  to  his  tasks  and  to  the  great  work 
of  reconstruction.  Elijah  had  simply  overestimated  his 
own  importance — that  was  all.  He  had  assumed  that 
God's  kingdom  in  the  world  could  not  go  on  without  him, 
but  he  was  utterly  mistaken.  Just  now  we  need  to  be 
reminded  of  the  fact,  writ  large  in  history,  that 

"Man  proposes,  but  God  disposes." 

Out  of  our  present  world  chaos  we  must  believe  that 
some  larger,  more  God-like  plan  is  to  come.  Man's  part 
in  the  divine  scheme  of  things  is  perfectly  evident,  but 
no  man  or  nation,  however  great,  is  indispensable  to  the 
working  out  of  God's  plan.  Humility  is  seemingly  a  lost 
virtue  with  us  today,  and  at  times  we  seem  to  think  our 
little  human  scheme  of  things  is  all-important.  It  very 
frequently  takes  a  catastrophe  to  bring  us  to  our  senses. 
We  have  one  now  ;  let  us  then  with  chastened  pride  recog- 
nize that  we  may  be  useful  just  in  so  far  as  we  acknowl- 
edge that  behind  all  the  world's  strange  tragedies,  behind 
its  vast  armies — yes,  and  its  plan-makers — is  One  who 
can  make  even  the  "wrath  of  man  to  turn  to  His  praise." 

Let  us  of  America  approach  our  new  tasks  at  home 
and  abroad  with  the  clear  consciousness  that  we  are  great 
and  invincible,  only  in  so  far  as  we  fit  into  God's  great 
and  eternal  purposes. 

The  assumed  alliance  of  a  kaiser  with  his  tribal  god, 
was  an  affront  to  the  world's  intelligence  and  a  denial  of 
its  universal  experience.  Kings  and  czars  and  kaisers 
may  depart,  and  all  their  miserable  and  unhallowed 
schemes  may  fail,  but  when  they  have  played  their  little 
though  tragic  part,  the  order  of  the  universe,  like  the 


182  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

stars  in  their  courses,  will  go  on,  and  all  the  federated 
powers  of  darkness  cannot  hinder  it. 

We  like  well  those  splendid  lines  of  Cowper — they  have 
a  peculiar  fitness  for  the  present  hour : 

"God  moves   in  a  mysterious   way 

His  wonders  to  perform; 
He  plants  His  footsteps  in  the  sea. 

And  rides  upon  the  storm. 
Blind  unbelief  is  sure  to  err, 

And  scan  His  work  in  vain; 
God  is  His  own  interpreter, 

And  He  will  make  it  plain." 

1^     ^     ^ 

**THE  MAN  WHO  WAS" 

RUDYARD  KIPLING  has  a  very  fascinating  and 
ingenious  story  under  the  above  caption.  It  was 
near  the  Khyber  Pass,  and  evening  mess  was  served, 
when  a  shot  rang  out,  and  presently  the  sentry  brought 
into  the  room  a  man,  whom  Kipling  describes  as  resemb- 
ling a  "heap  of  rags."  He  was  unkempt,  disheveled,  and 
utterly  dazed.  In  answer  to  the  questions  put  to  him  by 
the  officers,  he  could  give  no  coherent  response.  There 
was  nothing  about  his  person,  and  no  word  upon  his  lip 
that  indicated  his  identity.  When  all  inquiries  seemed 
futile,  suddenly  his  gaze  rested  upon  a  silver  centerpiece 
that  had  for  many  years  belonged  to  the  officers'  mess  of 
the  White  Hussars,  and  reaching  his  trembling  hand 
towards  it,  he  touched  a  hidden  and  secret  spring  and  dis- 
closed the  fact  that  in  some  distant  day  he  had  been  re- 
lated to  the  distinguished  company.  A  further  evidence 
of  his  lost  identity  was  disclosed  when  the  regimental 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  183 

rolls  were  examined,  and  it  was  found  that  one  Lieuten- 
ant Limmason  had  been  lost  to  his  command  some  30 
years  before.  With  the  return  to  the  familiar  things  of 
the  past,  memory  reasserted  itself,  and  he  was  able  to 
recognize  himself  and  to  recall  the  story  of  his  early  con- 
nections. In  a  word,  the  man  who  was,  came  back,  and 
for  a  brief  space  he  saw  himself  as  one  of  the  White 
Hussars,  whose  true  life  had  long  since  ceased  to  be. 
He  had  literally  been  buried  alive. 

The  story  is  suggestive,  and  is  within  the  range  of  the 
possible.  Fortunately,  it  does  not  fall  to  the  lot  of  many 
men  to  pass  through  such  a  calamitous  experience,  but 
there  is  many  a  man  of  us  who  has  come  to  years  of  ma- 
ture life,  who  can  hardly  recognize  in  the  present  self  the 
boy  or  the  youth  who  was,  in  the  days  of  aspiration  and 
large  expectations.  Unfortunately,  to  many  a  man  the 
world  proves  a  hard,  severe  and  exacting  task-master. 
The  ideals  of  early  life  are  all  too  frequently  blighted  and 
seemingly  destroyed  by  experiences  that  harden  the  sensi- 
bilities and  dissipate  the  early  dreams.  Some  natures  are 
so  sensitive  that  they  cannot  withstand  or  overcome  those 
world  forces  that  seek  to  break  down  and  destroy  the 
finer  conceptions  of  life,  its  obligations,  privileges  and 
opportunities.  Now  and  again  we  speak  of  a  life  as  em- 
bittered, and  all  too  frequently  we  treat  such  a  life  with 
too  little  consideration  and  respect.  Experience  has 
taught  us  that  neither  criticism  nor  condemnation  is  ef- 
fective to  restore  such  an  one.  On  the  other  hand,  we 
have  repeatedly  observed  that  the  only  reasonable  process 
that  sweetens  and  restores  is  one  of  gentleness,  intelli- 
gent kindness  and  deep  human  sympathy. 

One  of  the  saddest  phases  of  this  lost  self,  all  too  com- 
mon with  us,  is  that  which  is  disclosed  in  a  life  that 
has  forgotten  and  renounced  the  early  ideals  of  its  re- 


184  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

ligious  faith.  We  sometimes  wonder  how  many  men 
there  are  in  the  world  who,  so  far  as  their  religious  con- 
victions and  devotional  habits  are  concerned,  are  but  liv- 
ing witnesses  to  a  lost  and  buried  ideal.  Every  now  and 
again  in  the  course  of  our  contacts,  we  meet  such  an  in- 
dividual, and  it  has  been  our  experience  that  the  revival 
of  these  early  ideals  is  almost  invariably  effected  through 
a  return  to  certain  early  associations,  environments  or 
personalities,  long  since  out  of  sight  and  almost  lost  to 
memory.  Even  a  familiar  tune  or  a  hymn  sung  under  the 
old  roof -tree,  or  a  long-lost  photograph,  or  the  return  to 
familiar  scenes,  may  suddenly  destroy  the  later  illusions 
and  conceptions,  break  down  the  hardened  and  rebellious 
will,  and  bring  the  mind  back  again  to  a  fresh  expression 
and  a  new  realization  of  forgotten  hopes.  Unfortunately 
the  world  at  large,  as  it  judges  us,  knows  nothing  of  our 
antecedents,  and  we  are  rated  good  or  bad,  true  or  false, 
Christian  or  pagan,  by  what  we  seem  to  be  today.  The 
method  of  Jesus  was  far  different.  He  appraised  men 
for  what  they  hoped  to  be,  and  repeatedly  He  revealed  to 
their  vision  their  forgotten  selves.  Recalling  them  to  the 
high  ideals  of  their  better  natures.  He  opened  up  before 
them  new  vistas  of  opportunity  and  hope. 

"It  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be,"  and  it  is 
this  latent  possibility  that  even  in  man's  latest  hour  may 
restore  him  to  the  place  which  in  the  dreams  and  expec- 
tations of  his  youth  he  aspired  to. 


ttf,    *t    H 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  185 


THREE  THINGS 

THERE  come  times  when  we  feel  a  peculiar  yearn- 
ing for  those  things  that  speak  of  stability  and  per- 
manence. The  older  we  grow,  the  more  we  hark  back  to 
the  things  of  early  life  that  somehow  or  other  seem  to 
be  the  footing-stones  upon  which  the  whole  fabric  of  our 
being  is  builded.  This  is  marked  in  mature  life  by  the 
tenacity  with  which  we  cling  to  old  friendships,  old  as- 
sociations, and  the  familiar  places  of  our  youth. 

Every  now  and  again  we  are  rudely  awakened  from 
our  self-ease  and  self-satisfaction  by  some  influence  or 
circumstance  that  seems  to  shake  and  almost  uproot 
those  things  that  constitute  the  very  basis  of  our  system 
of  life.  The  present  is  doubtless  such  a  time,  and  it  were 
well  for  us  to-day  to  have  some  freshening  of  our  old 
enthusiasms  and  some  real  awakening  of  our  old  faiths 
and  beliefs.  It  has  been  our  observation,  that  affliction 
or  misfortune  tends  either  to  establish  and  strengthen 
faith,  or  to  seriously  impair  it. 

As  we  look  at  the  present  world  situation,  three  things 
commend  themselves  to  our  judgment  as  constituting  the 
ground  of  our  assurance  and  the  inspiration  of  our  ex- 
pectations. 

First,  we  believe  that  we  must  face  the  future  hope- 
fully. To  many  of  us  it  would  seem  that  we  had  entered 
a  period  in  which  the  problems  of  life  were  more  in- 
volved than  ever  before.  To  think  that  the  days  that  lie 
ahead  are  to  be  increasingly  hard,  with  much  of  shadow 
and  little  of  sunshine  must  inevitably  result  in  inefficiency 
for  present  tasks  or  incapacity  to  enjoy  the  benefits  that 
must  accrue  to  the  stern  experiences  of  the  present  hour. 
W]^  are  not  advocating  a  sort  of  blind  faith  in  "an  ulti- 


186 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

mate  decency  of  things,"  but  we  are  maintaining  that 
hopelessness  and  despair  spell  out  loss  of  confidence,  loss 
of  initiative,  with  consequent  disappointment  and  failure. 

Second,  let  us  be  ready  to  adjust  ourselves  to  the  ex- 
igencies of  the  hour.  In  a  word,  let  us  be  ready  and  pre- 
pared to  meet  any  changes  that  may  come.  This  means 
to  keep  ourselves  plastic  and  adaptable  to  changed  and 
changing  conditions.  We  once  laid  stress  upon  the  value 
of  fixity  of  thought  and  habit  of  life.  To-day,  however, 
fixity,  whether  in  thought  or  practice,  may  spell  ruin.  We 
believe  in  fixity  of  thought  and  practice  when  it  comes 
to  those  fundamental  principles  that  are  unchanged  and 
unchanging;  we  are  thinking  rather  of  those  modes  or 
habits  of  expression  that  disclose  themselves  in  our;  in- 
dividual and  corporate  life  and  more  particularly  ia  our 
religious,  social,  political,  and  economic  institutions.  To 
believe  that  what  has  been  must  be,  means  limi^tation, 
paralysis,  and  the  defeat  of  all  enterprise. 

Changes  already  are  manifesting  themselves,  far-reach- 
ing changes,  and  we  cannot  but  believe  that  they  forecast 
an  advance  for  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men. 

Bigotry,  bias  and  prejudice  bind  as  with  iron  chains 
the  thought  and  purpose  of  life.  For  centuries  of  time 
the  conflict  of  science  with  theology  and  the  conflict  of 
class  with  class,  where  there  was  no  charity  and  no  arbi- 
tration, again  and  again  brought  nations  and  peoples,  as 
well  as  communities  and  individuals,  to  the  verge  of 
despair  and  ruin. 

Jesus  Christ  evidently  believed  in  the  law  of  adaptation, 
hence  it  is  that  His  teachings  have,  almost  unconsciously 
to  the  world,  entered  into  its  forms  and  habits  of  thought 
and  action. 

Finally,  let  us  believe  unfailingly  and  trustfully  that, 
behind  all  the  seeming  chaos  and  present  world  happen- 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 187 

ings,  the  divine  hand  is  shaping  and  ordering  a  new  world 
that  is  to  excel  everything  that  has  gone  before.  The 
world,  at  present,  seems  like  an  orchestra  that  is  tuning 
up,  in  which  the  sounds  are  discordant  and  confused,  but 
presently  a  new  world  symphony  is  to  begin  in  which 
every  instrument  is  to  play  its  part,  in  which  every  note 
is  to  have  its  fullest  expression,  and  the  Leader  of  this 
vast  universal  symphony  is  to  be  more  evident  and  His 
will  more  dominant  in  the  life  of  the  world.  We  are 
unshaken  in  our  faith,  for  we  believe  that,  "Neverthe- 
less, the  foundation  of  God  standeth  sure." 

^    n    •(. 

UNPROFITABLE  TALK 

<<o  HOULD  he  reason  with  unprofitable  talk?  or  with 
O  speeches  wherewith  he  can  do  no  good?"  Most 
of  us  remember  how  in  our  youth  our  elders  ad- 
monished us  that  we  should  "give  an  account  of 
every  foolish  word  we  uttered,"  and  perhaps  some 
of  us  became  reticent  and  overcautious  and  have  con- 
tinued so  into  mature  life.  If  there  is  a  record  kept 
somewhere,  that  is  to  be  revealed  in  the  great  future,  of 
the  foolish  and  unprofitable  words  we  have  uttered, 
some  of  us  will  have  to  reckon  with  an  account  that  will 
overwhelm  us. 

Between  reticence  and  volubility  there  is  a  safe  and 
happy  mean,  and  just  now  we  need  to  find  it.  Perhaps 
few  of  us  could  enjoy  the  kind  of  an  evening  that  Emer- 
son and  Carlyle  spent  at  Craigenputtock  on  the  memor- 
able day  when  they  foregathered  and  after  a  lapse  of 
many  hours  retired  without  having  exchanged  a  word. 


188 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

It  was  with  them  communion  of  spirit  and  kinship  of 
soul  that  counted. 

Some  of  the  world's  most  terrible  tragedies  have  re- 
sulted from  the  practice  of  unreasonable  and  unreasoned 
talk.  We  are  reminded  that,  for  a  long  period  pre- 
ceding the  Civil  War  in  this  country,  men  in  the  North 
and  South  talked  in  an  injudicious  way  of  an  impending 
catastrophe,  and  long  before  the  fratricidal  strife  came, 
the  fires  were  generated  by  those  who  engaged  in  speeches 
wherewith  they  could  do  no  good.  For  years  before 
the  recent  war,  all  over  Europe  one  would  hear  constant- 
ly discussed  the  possibility  of  a  coming  struggle,  and  at 
last  speeches  gave  place  to  weapons  and  millions  of  lives 
were  sacrificed. 

Just  now  there  is  too  much  talk,  as  there  has  been  for 
some  years  past,  of  the  possibilities  of  strife  between  the 
several  elements  that  make  up  our  body  corporate.  An 
undue  emphasis  is  being  placed  upon  the  insular  rights 
and  peculiar  privileges  of  given  parties  or  interests  in  our 
country.  Of  one  thing  we  may  be  thankful,  namely,  that 
our  part  in  the  great  war  blotted  out  forever  the  sec- 
tional spirit  between  North  and  South,  and  so  far  as  the 
lads  in  the  service  were  concerned,  they  forgot  allegiance 
to  their  particular  States  in  their  devotion  to  the  ideals 
of  the  nation  as  a  whole. 

If  experience  teaches  us  anything,  it  enforces  the 
truth  of  the  text,  that  unprofitable  talk  is  both  unwise 
and  unsafe.  Instead  of  talking  about  the  cleavage  be- 
tween class  and  class  or  section  and  section,  let  us  form 
the  habit  of  emphasizing  the  essential  solidarity  of  the 
nation  as  a  whole,  and  the  essential  unity  of  our  common 
life.  Let  us  talk  more  about  America  for  Americans 
and  the  brotherhood  of  man,  and  make  them  something 
more  than  high-sounding  phrases.    Wars  begin  with  in- 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  189 

judicious  talk,  struggles  begin  with  speeches  that  are  cal- 
culated to  do  no  good.  It  has  been  found  repeatedly  that, 
where  much  talk  gives  way  to  intimate  conference  and 
a  fair  exchange  of  views,  adjustments  reasonable  and 
satisfactory  are  made. 

All  the  foregoing  has  a  very  definite  application  to  the 
things  of  the  Church.  Everyone  of  us  has  been  unduly 
talkative  about  denominational  superiority,  and  yet,  be- 
hind all  our  talk  we  generally  have  one  basis  of  faith. 
Supposing  we  do  have  our  peculiar  methods  of  adminis- 
tration and  our  conceptions  of  Christian  usages,  this  does 
not  hinder  our  emphasizing  the  fact  that  we  are  all  hu- 
man and  fallible  and  subject  to  mistakes,  nor  again  that 
we  all  have  to  live  a  common  life  with  common  virtues 
and  vices,  and  that  we  all  seek  ultimately  a  common 
destiny. 

All  over  America  today,  everywhere,  in  shop  and  home, 
in  public  and  private,  we  need  to  apply  the  muzzle  where 
our  speech  is  unreasoned  and  unseasoned,  and  where  it 
leads  inevitably,  not  only  to  confusion,  but  to  discord 
and  disorder.  We  are  not  going  to  have  strife  and 
struggle  if  we  keep  our  heads.  We  are  not  going  to  have 
breaches  between  classes  or  churches  or  organizations 
of  any  kind  if  sanity  prevails  and  a  Christian  temper 
governs  us. 

We  will  doubtless  have  freedom  of  speech,  but  any  ex- 
pression of  freedom  of  speech  that  contravenes  justice, 
fair  play,  or  the  common  good,  is  inimical  to  our  interests 
and  destructive  of  our  happiness. 


^         ^         t 


190  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 


*  CHURCHLESS  SUNDAYS 

WHETHER  we  go  to  church  or  not,  Sunday  without 
the  church  or  worship,  is  an  anomaly.  Can  any- 
one, be  he  pagan  or  Christian,  imagine  what  a  churchless 
city  or  a  churchless  town  would  be?  Perhaps  it  is  well 
that  we  have  had  this  recent  experience,  for  it  serves  to 
emphasize  in  the  consciousness  of  the  community  at  large 
the  essential  place  the  church  holds  in  its  life. 

Civilization  is  a  complex  and  peculiar  thing,  and  the 
forces  that  make  civilization  what  it  is  all  too  frequently 
go  unrecognized  and  unhonored.  With  most  of  us,  life 
becomes  too  much  a  matter-of-fact  thing,  and  altogether 
too  many  of  us  fail  to  consider  that  our  civilization  is 
what  it  is  solely  because  of  the  great,  time-honored  agen- 
cies and  institutions  that  constitute  its  safeguards.  We 
recall  that  a  distinguished  labor  leader  said  to  us  some 
time  ago,  "I  do  not  go  to  church  myself  as  frequently  as 
I  should,  but  I  do  send  my  wife  and  children,  and  I  con- 
tribute to  the  cause.  Perhaps  there  are  many  things 
about  the  church  that  make  me  feel  it  is  unsympathetic, 
but,  notwithstanding  this,  I  recognize  it  is  an  essential 
and  vitally  important  institution  in  the  life  of  the  world 
today." 

The  church  may  be  criticized,  condemned  and  pilloried, 
as  it  frequently  is  by  the  unthinking  and  ungenerous, 
and  let  us  acknowledge  that  at  times  it  is  worthy  of  such 
criticism  and  would  become  offensively  arrogant  with- 
out it,  but  let  the  conscientious  layman  remember  that 
the  church,  while  divine  in  its  conceptions  of  life  and 
immortality,  is  administered  by  human  beings,  who,  not- 

*  {The  churches  were  closed  throughout  the  country  on  ac- 
count of  widespread  influenza  epidemic.) 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  191 

withstanding  their  sacred  office,  are  susceptible  to  the 
weaknesses  and  mistakes  of  human  nature. 

Perhaps  the  closing  of  the  churches  for  a  brief  space 
has  given  us  time  to  reflect  upon  the  place  of  supreme 
importance  they  occupy  in  maintaining  a  higher  standard 
of  thinking  and  a  nobler  habit  of  living.  It  is  inconceiv- 
able that  we  shall  ever  have  churchless  cities  or  towns, 
and  we  also  believe  that  it  is  likewise  inconceivable  that 
we  shall  ever  have  churchless  Sundays  because  of  the 
wish  or  will  of  the  people. 

No,  the  church  as  an  institution  constitutes  a  vitally 
essential  part  in  the  life  of  the  home,  of  society,  of  in- 
dustry, and  of  the  state.  History  is  replete  with  illus- 
trations of  the  decline  of  great  states  where  altars  were 
neglected  and  the  things  of  worship  ignored.  Our 
churchless  Sundays  have  brought  more  acutely  before  us 
our  needs  as  a  people,  and  we  have  realized  that  even 
the  illuminating  (  ?)  and  informing  Sunday  newspaper 
is  a  poor  substitute  for  the  inspirations  of  religion. 

While  we  are  speaking  about  this  whole  matter  it 
might  be  well  for  us  to  suggest,  that  now  is  the  time  for 
clergy  and  laity  alike  to  look  the  facts  concerning  our 
religious  life  squarely  in  the  face  and  to  consider  their 
relation  to  them.  The  church,  obviously,  is  here  to  stay, 
and  wars  and  rumors  of  wars  cannot  displace  it. 

This  being  so,  what  can  be  done  to  lift  it  to  higher 
levels  of  efficiency,  power  and  inspiration?  We  venture 
to  submit  that  one  of  the  most  important  things  to  be 
done  is,  to  recognize  that  the  church  as  an  institution  is 
successful  and  helpful  only  in-so-far  as  everyone  who 
believes  in  it  contributes  his  or  her  part.  It  is  a  mis- 
taken notion,  that  the  clergy  are  solely  responsible  for 
the  church  and  that  they  alone  make  it  what  it  is.  Let 
it  be  emphatically  said,  the  church  in  its  finest  concep- 


192  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

tion  is  the  whole  body  of  the  people,  and  it  becomes  a 
finer  source  of  inspiration  when  all  the  people  bring  to 
it,  as  their  contribution  to  its  efficiency,  not  only  their 
spirit  of  worship,  but  their  devotion,  their  loyalty,  and 
their  unselfish  service. 

We  are  not  going  to  have  churchless  Sundays  nor 
churchless  people.  Any  man  with  a  vision  today  must 
maintain  that  the  church  as  an  institution  is  more  needed 
now  than  ever  before.  A  churchless  Sunday  is  one  thing, 
but  a  godless  nation  is  a  far  more  serious  thing.  May 
we  be  saved  from  both. 

LIFE  WITH  A  PURPOSE 

ALL  great  men  and  women  have  been  dominated  by 
some  supreme  ideal  or  some  lofty  conception  of  the 
purpose  of  life ;  even  the  occult  enters  into  this  con- 
ception, as  in  the  case  of  Napoleon,  who  unfailingly  be- 
lieved in  the  star  of  his  destiny. 

To  many  of  us  life  is  a  purposeless  thing,  it  begins 
seemingly  nowhere  and  it  ends  nowhere.  Again,  the 
plan  or  scheme  of  things  seems  so  chaotic  to  our  vision 
that  its  time-tables,  its  regulations  and  its  routes,  are 
confused  and  confusing.  Very  frequently  we  are  dis- 
covered by  others,  and  a  talent  or  genius  that  we  least 
suspected  is  called  into  being.  To  discover  a  genius  is 
greater  than  to  discover  a  river  of  doubt.  It  is  a  great 
thing  when  a  Lincoln  discovers  a  Grant,  or  a  Grant  a 
Lincoln. 

At  this  time  of  the  year  tens  of  thousands  of  youths 
are  emerging  from  their  schoolrooms,  graduating  into  the 
larger  field  of  human  service  and  endeavor.     We  often 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  193 

wonder,  as  we  greet  them,  if  they  know  where  they  are 
going  or  what  they  are  going  to  do.  Many  of  them  seem 
to  have  absorbed  the  modern  maxim :  "We  don't  know 
where  we  are  going,  but  let  us  get  there  as  quickly  as 
possible."  To  a  more  mature  and  reflective  mind,  life 
does  seem  to  have  some  plan,  and  even  its  failures  and 
disappointments  constitute  no  small  part  in  the  outwork- 
ing of  a  purpose  that  oftentimes  is  beyond  our  compre- 
hension. 

Jesus  lived  but  three  and  thirty  years ;  His  whole  life, 
judged  by  human  standards,  was  one  of  disappointment, 
failure,  and  ultimate  defeat.  Condemned  and  pilloried 
by  His  own  kinsmen,  without  honor  in  His  own  country, 
He  was  regarded  by  His  contemporaries  as  a  disturber 
of  the  peace,  a  destroyer  of  ancient  customs,  and  an  in- 
novator whom  they  would  not  tolerate.  To  the  church- 
men of  His  day  He  was  an  intruder,  whose  insolence  and 
interference  they  could  not  abide.  Notwithstanding 
every  obstacle,  He  set  His  face  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem 
and  to  lay  the  plans  of  His  kingdom,  whose  scope  was 
universal  and  whose  influence  was  not  to  be  bounded  by 
time  or  place.  At  the  close  of  His  career,  while  He 
stood  under  the  shadow  of  a  cross,  He  declared :  "I  have 
glorified  Thee  on  the  earth."  It  was  His  final  testimony 
concerning  the  efliciency  of  His  life's  mission. 

Only  three  years  of  comparatively  obscure  public  life, 
and  yet,  by  His  own  testimony,  confirmed  by  the  judg- 
ment of  subsequent  history.  He  had  wrought  out  a  sys- 
tem whose  influence  was  to  touch  every  land  and  to  affect 
all  forms  of  human  life  the  world  over.  If  Caesar  Au- 
gustus could  say,  "I  found  Rome  brick  and  left  it 
marble,"  then  Jesus  could  say,  "I  found  human  life  with- 
out the  consciousness  of  the  divine  and  without  the  sense 
of  destiny,  and  1  have  given  it  the  realization  of  its  God- 


194 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

likeness,  and  I  have  filled  it  with  the  pulsings  of  eternity." 
When  Cecil  Rhodes  was  dying,  his  latest  words  were, 
"So  much  to  do,  so  little  done."  It  was  the  expression 
of  one  who  in  the  ripeness  and  fullness  of  years  was 
conscious  of  unfulfillment.  Not  so  Jesus.  His  was  the 
realization  of  one  who,  even  on  the  cross,  could  say  con- 
cerning His  life's  task,  "It  is  finished."  Obviously,  He 
realized  that  He  was  working  solely  and  supremely  in 
conformity  with  the  divine  will.  "My  meat  is  to  do  the 
will  of  Him  that  sent  me"  was  the  inspiration  of  His  life. 
Does  not  much  of  our  life's  service  miscarry  because 
it  is  seemingly  unrelated  to  God's  infinite  plan?  The 
Westminster  confession,  in  its  opening  sentence,  is  in 
consonance  with  the  word  of  Christ :  "Man's  chief  end 
is  to  glorify  God,  and  enjoy  Him  forever."  Mr.  Elihu 
Root  once  said:  "Life  is  not  in  length  of  days;  to  have 
done  something  that  will  last,  to  weave  a  thread  into 
the  fabric  that  shall  endure  for  ages,  that  is  life."  The 
poet,  Wadsworth,  said: 

"There's  not  a  man  that  lives 
Who  has  not   known   his   God-like  hours." 

We  believe  this  to  be  true,  and  because  it  is  true  it  is  a 
sad  commentary  upon  so-called  misspent  and  wasted  lives. 

To  many  of  us,  who  are  seeking  at  this  time  to  dis- 
close to  our  vision  life's  larger  plan,  there  is  found  in  the 
present  world  chaos  the  evidence  of  something  that  in  its 
outworking  is  not  fortuitous  nor  governed  by  chance. 
To  be  able  to  see,  even  in  part,  the  scheme  or  plan  of 
things,  and  then  to  fit  ourselves  to  further  it,  means  to 
ally  ourselves  with  Him  in  whose  hand  are  the  issues  of 
life.  It's  a  great  thing  to  be  able  to  say :  "I  have  glori- 
fied Thee  on  the  earth." 

K     tH     ^ 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  195 


CONFIDENCE 

^^A^  AST  not  away  your  confidence,  which  hath  great 
V>  recompense  of  reward."  Confidence  is  one  of 
the  basic  elements  of  human  hfe.  It  has  its  gamut  from 
the  cradle  to  the  grave.  It  begins  with  the  child  in  the 
home,  enters  vitally  into  his  life  in  the  maturing  period 
in  the  school,  and  is  the  fundamental  essential  of  his  suc- 
cess in  the  period  of  his  larger  occupation  with  human 
affairs.  Confidence  begets  confidence.  The  want  of  it 
destroys  life's  efficiency,  the  expression  of  it  guarantees 
its  success.  No  teacher  has  ever  taught  with  power  and 
efficiency  who  did  not  impart,  as  well  as  command  this 
important  element.  No  laggard  in  the  class  room  was 
ever  stimulated  to  greater  effort  and  ultimate  triumph  by 
rebuke  and  persistent  criticism,  but  many  a  lad  has  been 
restored  to  a  place  of  power  and  effective  service  by  the 
disclosure  of  confidence  on  the  part  of  a  reassuring 
teacher.  An  ounce  of  confidence  is  worth  a  pound  of 
prohibition  in  the  development  of  the  boy — yes,  and  of 
the  man.  It  is  better  to  clean  than  to  break  the  slate  of 
the  defective  scholar.  As  we  mature  in  life,  this  ele- 
ment of  confidence  becomes  more  precious  to  us.  How 
many  men  would  succeed  in  the  commercial  world  today 
did  they  not  have  some  assurance  from  those  above  them 
of  the  unfulfilled  possibilities  of  life?  I  have  always  liked 
that  phrase,  "Man  is  not  so  much  a  fact  as  a  possibility." 
In  the  big  game  of  life  it  is  the  man,  not  only  with  genius 
but  with  the  sense  of  assurance  born  of  the  support  of 
those  above  him,  who  wins.  Grant's  efficiency  was 
trebled  by  Lincoln's  expressed  confidence. 

Underlying  all  industrial  and  commercial   enterprise 
and   guaranteeing   its    success   and   perpetuity,    is    con- 


196  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

fidence.  We  have  fallen  upon  a  time  that  un- 
fortunately seems  to  disclose  a  want  of  confidence,  and 
want  of  confidence  is  the  precursor  of  all  panics.  In 
1907  the  thing  that  caused  the  tremendous  depression 
and  resultant  insolvency  of  many  of  our  Eastern  insti- 
tutions was  the  withdrawal  of  confidence.  It  seems  to 
be  the  popular  thing  today  on  the  part  of  certain  news- 
paper and  magazine  writers  to  decry  the  times  and  the 
men  who  make  them,  and  to  imply  that  in  this  great  land 
of  ours  the  whole  industrial  situation  is  on  the  verge  of 
despair  and  ruin.  There  is  a  class  of  men  in  our  legis- 
latures, state  and  national,  whose  methods  of  self -ex- 
ploitation pursue  this  dubious  and  fallacious  course. 
They  bid  for  a  cheap  notoriety,  and  seem  to  get  it.  They 
are  self-constituted  diagnosticians  of  their  age,  but  un- 
fortunately while  they  essay  the  role  of  diagnostician 
they  have  no  reasonable  or  proper  remedies  for  the  sit- 
uations they  think  they  discover.  I  believe  the  time  has 
gone  by  for  this  Diogenes  type  of  muckraker,  the  man 
who  is  everlastingly  pursuing  his  quest,  seeking  at  broad 
noonday  with  lantern  in  hand  for  human  defects.  This 
great  country  of  ours  is  not  only  self-contained,  not  only 
rich  in  its  own  abundant  resources,  but  it  has  in  it  a 
working  majority  of  its  people,  not  only  capable  of  higher 
things  but  effecting  higher  things  in  every  phase  of  our 
corporate  life.  We  need  to  be  admonished  that,  if  we 
are  to  endure  socially,  commercially  or  industrially  as  a 
nation,  we  must  recognize  the  saving  virtue  and  integrity 
that  resides  in  the  vast  majority  of  our  people. 

Apply  this  principle  to  the  great  questions  that  relate 
to  the  adjustment  of  differences  between  capital  and 
labor.  It  is  want  of  confidence  on  both  sides  that  pre- 
cipitates most  of  our  industrial  disturbances  and  pro- 
duces industrial  disasters.     I  have  been  close  enough  to 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  197 

the  two  parties  in  our  great  human  workroom  to  know 
that  where  suspicion  is  engendered,  inefficiency  and  ruin 
follow.  It  is  universally  true : — "A  house  divided  against 
itself  cannot  stand."  It  would  be  well  if  we  could  all, 
as  a  people,  go  back  to  school  to  learn  this  one  supreme- 
ly important  lesson,  that  happiness  and  peace,  prosperity 
and  right-living  are  born  out  of  the  consciousness  of 
mutual  interdependence,  of  mutual  confidence.  Through 
the  setting  up  of  false  standards  and  the  undue  emphasis 
of  class  distinctions,  and  a  growing  suspicion  between 
the  various  elements  in  our  national  and  civic  life,  we 
have  come  repeatedly  perilously  near  rupture  and  dis- 
order. After  all,  the  Divine  remedy  is  the  only  one, 
the  brotherhood  of  man  is  something  more  than  a  high- 
sounding  phrase.  It  is  the  principle  of  life  that  under- 
lies all  permanence,  peace  and  security. 

WASTE 

THE  Master  of  men  believed  in  conservation.  He 
not  only  believed  in  the  conservation  of  material 
things  but  in  the  conservation  of  those  things  in  our 
human  nature  that  are  worthy  of  our  greatest  concern. 
With  his  penetrating  eye  he  saw  the  saving  good  in  hu- 
man life.  What  men  sometimes  call  "the  remnant  of 
good,"  to  Him  constituted  the  vital  spark  that,  once 
fanned  into  a  flame,  meant  a  life  illuminated  and  saved. 
We  as  a  people  are  having  forced  home  upon  our  con- 
sciousness today  the  need  of  stopping  the  leaks  or,  in 
other  words,  the  need  of  stopping  the  waste.  Probably 
we  are  as  prodigal  as  most  people.  It  is  perhaps  our 
generosity,  in  part,  that  prompts  us  to  be  so.     Again, 


198  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

it  may  arise  from  the  fact  that  we  have  had  a  super- 
abundant supply  of  men  and  things,  especially  things. 
Suddenly  we  were  arrested  by  the  statement  that  man- 
power on  the  one  hand  and  food  resources  on  the  other 
constitute  the  very  sinews  of  war  itself.  We  are  being 
told  today  that  that  nation  must  endure  that  has  the 
greatest  supply  of  these  essentials. 

If  these  lessons  that  are  so  important  can  be  brought 
home  to  the  consciousness,  especially  of  our  growing 
youth,  they  will  constitute  one  of  the  most  valuable  things 
that  will  come  out  of  this  war.  We  have  often  remarked, 
in  traveling  abroad,  that  the  peoples  of  small  countries, 
especially  those  who  literally  have  to  extract  from  the 
rather  sterile  and  rocky  soil  of  mountainous  regions  their 
limited  products,  disclose  the  greatest  economy.  Our  acres 
are  so  broad,  our  land  so  productive,  our  resources 
so  unmeasured,  that  we  have  fallen  into  the  habit  of 
careless  and  wasteful  living.  Let  us  here  remark  that 
almost  inevitably,  wasteful  living  leads  to  intemperate 
living,  and  intemperate  living  leads  to  moral  and  physi- 
cal enervation  and  ultimately  to  destruction.  Abundant 
citations  from  history  might  be  submitted  in  demon- 
stration of  this. 

We  have  never  thought  perhaps,  that  religion  and  con- 
servation of  the  world's  resources  and  supplies  were  in- 
timately related,  but  they  are.  Indeed,  we  are  learning 
at  last  that  the  great  Teacher  of  men  was  intensely  prac- 
tical and  that  His  life  and  its  ministry  were  designed  to 
deal  with  the  most  vital  and  immediate  problems  of  hu- 
man living,  and  that  His  supreme  endeavor  was  to  make 
this  world  a  fit  place  in  which  to  live,  and  so  to  make  it, 
in  a  very  real  sense,  the  vestibule  to  a  larger  and  more 
abundant  world  beyond.  It  has  become  now  a  matter  of 
paramount  importance  that  His  point  of  view  concern- 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  199 

ing  waste  should  be  learned  by  every  individual  in  the 
land,  and  indeed  in  the  world.  An  overfull  and  overfed 
nation  is  doomed,  because  it  witnesses  to  carelessness, 
prodigality  and  an  un-Christian  theory  of  living.  The 
Christian  church  itself  has  not  always  been  immune  to 
the  charge  of  wastefulness,  but  today,  throughout  the 
land,  it  must  stand  for  conservation  of  men  and  re- 
sources as  it  has  never  done  before.  We  have  been  re- 
minded repeatedly  of  late,  that  they  who  waste  any- 
thing at  this  critical  time  are  enemies  of  the  state  and 
of  society.  Ought  there  not  to  be  disclosed  a  practical 
demonstration  of  conservation  in  all  the  practices  of  our 
daily  life,  and  ought  there  not  to  result  therefrom,  not 
only  a  more  abundant  supply  of  food  for  those  who  most 
sorely  need  it  in  the  devastated  countries  over-seas,  but 
a  far  better  manhood  and  womanhood  here  in  our  own 
land.  "Gather  up  the  fragments  that  remain" — might 
well  be  one  of  the  slogans  of  the  hour,  and  in  our  gather- 
ing up  of  the  fragments  of  material  things,  let  us  take 
heed  that  we  gather  up  also  those  finer  fragments  that 
remain,  even  in  lives  that  have  hitherto  witnessed  to 
failure  and  defeat.  There  is  a  vast  reserve  remaining 
beneath  the  surface  of  the  soil  that  only  waits  the  hand 
of  the  toiler  to  uncover  it.  There  are  vast  resources  of 
good  in  human  nature,  covered  up  by  rough  and  rude  ex- 
teriors, that  only  await  the  sympathetic  word  of  con- 
fidence and  expectancy  to  reveal  them  in  all  their  splen- 
dor and  potentiality. 


^5        ^        ^ 


200  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 


THE  INDISPENSABLENESS  OF  RELIGION 

THAT  religion  is  an  essential  of  life  is  universally 
true.  From  the  untutored  savage  with  his  ideals 
of  immortality  as  expressed  in  the  "happy  hunting 
grounds,"  from  Darwin's  Patagonian  savage  with  his 
crude  notions  of  God,  down  through  all  the  stages  of 
human  life,  the  world  over,  we  have  expressions  of  man's 
yearning  for  the  divine.  The  Psalmist  cries  out,  "My 
soul  is  athirst  for  God,"  and  this  thirst  is  just  as  pro- 
nounced in  the  life  of  every  age  and  people  as  it  was 
when  the  King  of  Israel  gave  utterance  to  his  yearning. 
Some  one  has  well  said  that  "life  is  a  continuous  ad- 
venture into  the  unknown."  In  other  words,  man  is 
ever  reaching  up  into  the  heights  beyond  him,  seeking 
for  some  clear  and  fixed  realization  of  God,  and  some 
definite  experience  that  will  make  more  evident  to  his 
consciousness  his  own  relation  to  God.  It  is  unquestion- 
ably true,  as  the  Frenchman  says,  "Man  is  incurably 
religious,"  and  however  simple  or  grotesque  or  dignified 
the  forms  may  be  in  which  he  casts  his  imfailing  religious 
conviction,  nevertheless  they  bring  satisfaction  to  his 
soul  and  a  serenity  of  mind  that  nothing  else  affords. 

This  need  of  the  divine  seems  at  times  to  suffer  al- 
most a  complete  paralysis.  In  one  way  or  another  and 
for  one  cause  or  another  men  will  shut  out  of  their  lives, 
so  far  as  they  are  able,  the  consciousness  of  the  need 
of  God,  and  from  the  many  philosophies,  systems  or 
theories  of  life,  they  will  seek  to  draw  that  which  fur- 
nishes satisfaction  and  seeming  peace.  Again  and  again 
we  have  observed  that  only  some  strange  happenings, 
some  misfortune  or  disappointment  seems  to  arouse  the 
dormant  spiritual  nature  and  to  give  it  expression.    Na- 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 201 

tions,  like  individuals,  sustain  these  periods  of  soul- 
atrophy  and  seem  for  a  time  to  be  self-sufficient  and 
self-confident  and  self -sustained.  They  have  no  need 
of  God.  They  have  no  sense  of  insufficiency.  In  such 
periods  the  fires  burn  low  upon  the  altar  of  sacrifice  and 
the  sense  of  devotion  to  high  spiritual  ideals  becomes 
inactive,  if  not  impotent. 

Two  evident  purposes  mark  the  ministry  of  Jesus,  the 
one  to  make  more  clear  to  man  his  own  sense  of  the 
need  of  God  and  to  more  clearly  articulate  this  need, 
and  the  other  to  reveal  to  man  more  fully  and  complete- 
ly the  great  heart  of  the  Father  and  His  eternal  purposes 
and  will  concerning  His  children.  With  this  revelation 
He  also  coupled  a  clear  pronouncement  of  man's  relation 
to  his  fellows.  In  His  own  amazing  ministry  He  sought 
again  and  again  to  illustrate  these  profound  truths.  To 
questioning  disciples,  who  thought  only  of  things  material. 
He  said,  'T  have  meat  to  eat  that  ye  know  not  of,"  and 
again,  "My  meat  is  to  do  the  will  of  Him  that  sent  me." 
He  declared  repeatedly  that  the  real  things  that  make 
for  the  more  abundant  life  are  the  invisible  and  spiritual 
things,  and  without  these  life  is  impoverished  and  un- 
satisfied. We  have  fallen  upon  a  time  when  spiritual 
ideals  are  being  discussed  as  they  have  not  been  for  a 
generation  past.  In  camp  and  field,  in  home  and  office, 
men  are  seeking  to  make  more  real  to  their  consciousness 
those  things  that  withstand  even  the  shock  of  war  and 
the  catastrophes  of  time.  Every  soldier  that  has  re- 
turned from  the  trenches  comes  back  fairly  aglow  with 
new  conceptions  of  religion's  worth,  its  utter  sufficiency 
in  the  hour  of  need.  Only  recently  we  received  from 
one  of  the  leading  military  instructors  in  an  American 
camp  the  statement,  that  the  greatest  need  of  the  camp, 
as   expressed   by   the   men   themselves,    was   a   fresher 


202  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

and  clearer  presentation  of  spiritual  ideals.  It  is  amaz- 
ing that  in  the  most  material  occupation  in  which  men 
engage  there  comes  the  deeper  yearning  for  the  invisible 
and  the  intangible.  Here  it  is  that  men  come  to  realize 
the  profound  meaning  of  the  words,  "Man  shall  not  live 
by  bread  alone."  Whatever  else  this  war  may  or  may 
not  produce,  it  has  already  effected  a  revival  of  pro- 
found and  far-reaching  religious  interest.  How  this  in- 
terest is  to  crystallize  or  what  form  it  is  to  take,  the  com- 
ing days  must  disclose.  Sadly  and  helplessly  impover- 
ished must  he  be  who,  in  the  midst  of  the  world-storm, 
clings  only  to  a  material  fabric  that  already  is  shaken  to 
its  deep  foundations. 

•v     "     "s 
ABDICATED  PARENTHOOD 

SOME  time  ago  we  heard  a  distinguished  Jewish  rabbi 
speak  on  the  subject,  "How  shall  we  care  for  our 
boys  and  girls?"  Among,  other  things  that  he  said, 
with  which  we  enthusiastically  agreed,  was  that  the 
teaching  of  sex  hygiene  in  public  places,  notably  in  our 
schools,  was  not  only  undesirable,  but  to  him  reprehen- 
sible. The  large  point  that  he  made  was,  that  all  these 
modern  practices,  to  relegate  to  teachers  and  disinter- 
ested parties  those  clearly  defined  obligations  that  are 
peculiarly  parental,  were  the  evidences  of  the  Twentieth 
century  tendency  to  parental  abdication.  He  maintained 
with  irresistible  power  the  transcendent  place  of  father- 
hood and  motherhood  in  the  upbringing  and  character- 
making  of  the  child. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  one  of  the  cardinal 
weaknesses  of  our  time  is  the  lowering  of  the  standards 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION 203 

of  home  life  through  parental  neglect  and  indifference. 
Probably  nothing  is  disclosing  this  more  completely  than 
the  critical  war  period  through  which  we  are  now  pass- 
ing. Army  life  and  the  exigencies  of  the  war  test  and 
tax  character  as  nothing  else  has  done.  It  is  widely  ac- 
cepted that  there  is  nothing  more  sacred  than  the  obliga- 
tion laid  upon  parenthood,  nor  is  there  an  institution 
more  sacred  in  its  character  and  purpose  than  the  home 
itself.  Where  there  is  no  fine  home  influence  and  no 
sense  of  parental  responsibility,  verily,  the  people  perish. 
Nothing  is  writ  larger  upon  the  page  of  history  than  this 
fact,  that  only  those  nations  and  peoples  endure  who 
first,  last  and  always,  conserve  and  protect  the  interests 
of  the  home.  When  we  attempt  to  trace  the  greatness 
or  the  strength  of  the  world's  leaders  back  to  its  source, 
it  inevitably  leads  us  to  the  fireside  and  to  the  sterling 
qualities  of  some  consecrated  father  or  mother.  In  this 
connection,  it  is  of  more  than  passing  interest  to  note 
that,  many,  if  not  most  of  the  world's  benefactors  have 
sprung  out  of  a  home  condition  that  was  utterly  simple, 
homely  and  in  many  instances  impoverished,  so  far  as 
worldly  goods  are  concerned.  Such  homes  with  mag- 
nificent qualities  of  character  in  the  home  leaders,  have 
proved  training-grounds  for  men  and  women  of  sur- 
passing richness  of  genius,  and  the  world  affectionately 
turns  to  them  as  the  very  sources  of  its  inspiration  and 
highest  development. 

The  great  question  that  challenges  us  today  is,  are  we 
conserving  and  guarding  these  sacred  influences  that 
underlie  and  guarantee  our  national  life  and  secure  to 
us  its  best  and  finest  gifts?  Again  and  again  we  have 
been  reminded  of  late  that  modern  home  conditions 
are  not  what  they  once  were.  The  world  is  too  much 
with  us  early  and  late,  and  the  modern  business  man, 


204 EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

struggling  to  keep  pace  with  the  swift  movements  of  his 
time,  has  become  but  a  lodger,  where  once  he  was  the 
strong  head  and  defender  of  that  which  the  Englishman 
calls  his  "castle." 

We  believe  America  is  thinking  more  solemnly  and 
seriously  upon  this  great  question  now  than  it  has  ever 
done  before. 

»t     •?     •! 


FORWARD  LOOKING 

"TT  rOULD  to  God  we  had  been  content,  and  dwelt 
W  on  the  other  side  Jordan!"  These  are  the  words 
of  an  ancient  general.  They  were  spoken  by  him  after 
he  had  met  a  signal  defeat,  which  came  as  the  result 
of  disobedience  to  the  known  will  of  God.  He  and  his 
hitherto  victorious  army  were  entering  the  Land  of 
Promise,  and  they  had  had  every  assurance  of  realizing 
their  highest  hopes  and  expectations.  The  sudden  check 
in  their  advance  had  caused  a  reaction  and  loss  of  en- 
thusiasm, and  a  desire  to  return  to  old  conditions. 

The  "primrose  path  of  dalliance"  is  always  easier  than 
that  of  duty.  Unfortunately  we  yield  all  too  readily 
to  the  way  of  least  resistance.  This  process  begins  in 
early  life.  It  discloses  itself  in  the  choice  by  the  student 
of  the  "easy  courses."  It  is,  "anything  to  get  through," 
with  as  little  effort  and  outlay  of  energy  as  possible. 
Again,  it  is  a  search  for  the  "easy  job"  or  the  "soft 
place."  We  heard  a  man  say  recently,  that  he  had  always 
been  looking  for  a  job  with  little  work  and  much  pay, 
and  at  last  he  had  found  it.  He  seemed  to  flatter  him- 
self that  he  had  discovered  the  sure  road  to  success. 
How  few  of  us  are  willing  to  undertake  reforms  either 


'  EVERYDAY  RELIGION  205 

in  our  individual  or  in  our  corporate  life  if  they  entail 
any  sacrifice  or  inconvenience.  One  of  the  most  dan- 
gerous policies  in  the  world  is  the  so-called  "let  well 
enough  alone"  policy.  It  is  the  policy  of  the  sluggard 
and  the  drone.  We  have  always  liked  that  word,  "He 
that  putteth  his  hand  to  the  plough  and  looketh  back  is 
not  fit  for  the  kingdom  of  God,"  and  we  would  like  to 
add,  "nor  for  the  kingdom  of  man." 

This  tendency  of  looking  backward,  to  reflect  upon 
old  conditions,  and  this  desire  to  return  to  ways  of  com- 
fort and  ease,  have  done  more  to  retard  the  progress  of 
the  race  than  possibly  any  other  thing  we  might  name. 
"Would  to  God  we  had  been  content!"  This  is  the 
expression  that  is  universally  heard.  We  seem  to  for- 
get that  it  was  discontent  that  forced  the  cave-man  to 
seek  for  better  conditions  of  living,  and  by  slow  stages 
has  marked  the  upward  movement  of  the  race.  True, 
it  requires  courage  and  reasonable  self-assurance  to 
make  new  advances.  We  have  fallen  upon  a  time  when 
it  is  dangerous  to  look  backward.  Our  forward  advance 
today,  like  marriage,  is  "for  better  or  worse,  for  richer 
or  poorer,"  and  it  is  inevitably  true  that,  "he  who  hesi- 
tates is  lost."  Caesar  crossed  his  Rubicon,  even  as 
Columbus  sailed  his  uncharted  seas,  and  as  Grant  stood 
stubbornly  before  Vicksburg. 

The  calls  for  a  courageous  advance  along  every  line 
have  never  been  more  clamorous  than  they  are  today. 
The  air  itself  seems  to  be  vibrant  with  the  enthusiasm 
of  weighty  issues  and  on  every  hand  there  are  evidences 
that  old  theories  and  old  institutions  are  in  the  crucible 
and  presently  to  be  remelted  and  recast.  No  prophet 
can  foretell  the  events  of  a  day.  It  is  no  time  to  cry 
out,  "Would  to  God  we  had  been  content  and  had  dwelt 
on  the  other  side  Jordan !"    We  are  not  urging  an  ad- 


206  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

venturous  and  abandoned  acquiescence  to  every  new 
theory  or  sophistry  of  the  hour,  but  we  are  enthusiasti- 
cally advocating  the  need  for  forward-looking  and  for  a 
determined  advance  in  the  direction  of  a  new  Land  of 
Promise. 

As  this  applies  to  our  common,  corporate  life  as  a 
people,  so  it  applies  with  peculiar  force  to  the  life  of 
the  Church.  We  cannot  "rest  on  our  oars;"  we  cannot 
ask  for  our  yesterdays  of  a  so-called  "comfortable  Gos- 
pel," whatever  that  may  imply;  we  can  no  longer  seek 
to  be  "carried  to  the  skies  on  flowery  beds  of  ease." 
The  Church  itself,  and  Christian  people  generally,  must, 
after  the  manner  of  their  Master,  move  forward  courag- 
eously and  enthusiastically  to  new  fields  of  service  and 
endeavor.  Let  us  be  dissatisfied,  sanely  dissatisfied,  with 
our  laissez  faire  religious  habit.  Let  us  be  dissatisfied 
with  our  sentimental  expressions  of  Christian  unity,  and 
substitute  therefor  something  more  vital  and  practical. 
Let  us  be  dissatisfied  with  an  "other-worldly"  religion, 
and  interpret  to  the  anxious  ear  of  mankind  the  Christ's 
religion,  which  was  eminently  present-worldly.  In  fine, 
let  us,  not  yearn  for  the  old  conditions  of  ease  and  frigid 
respectability,  but  rather  move  forward  across  our  new 
Jordan  into  the  Land  of  Promise  and  larger  fulfilment. 

tn   *i    m. 
JESUS  CHRIST,  THE  WORKMAN 

Is  not  this  the  carpenter? 

^  1^  HIS  was  the  critical  comment  of  the  neighbors  in 

-*-      Nazareth     when     their     fellow-townsman,     Jesus 

Christ,  undertook  to  teach  them  in  the  place  of  public 

worship.    The  man  who  had  plied  his  craft  day  by  day 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  207 

among  them  they  could  not  and  would  not  accept  as  their 
teacher.  They  had  not  yet  learned  that  "the  highest  dig- 
nity of  thought  is  consonant  with  the  greatest  humility  of 
circumstance." 

It  was  no  mere  accident  that  Jesus  was  a  carpenter. 
Every  Hebrew  lad  had  to  learn  a  trade,  and  it  was  in  part 
for  this  that  the  Romans  despised  them  as  a  people. 
Christ  entered  into  the  fullness  of  our  life's  experience. 
He  passed  over  the  same  paths  and  through  the  same 
trials,  that  His  sympathy  might  be  coterminous  with 
every  phase  of  human  life.  We  all  understand  the  lan- 
guage of  the  toiler.  There  is  a  commonness  about  work 
that  makes  us  all  kin.  We  believe  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
to  have  been  a  rugged,  strong,  virile  toiler,  in  the  great 
workroom  of  service.  He  stands  as  the  simple  peasant, 
the  lowly  workman,  the  world's  Master,  in  the  humble 
environment  of  Nazareth.  Genius  regards  not  the  lim- 
itations of  time  or  place. 

The  carpenter  of  Nazareth,  by  his  whole  teaching  and 
life  is  appealing  to  our  modern  times  for  the  recognition 
of  the  larger  fellowship  of  our  common  human  interest. 
The  very  selection  by  Christ  of  the  role  of  workman,  is 
suggestive  of  his  desire  to  emphasize  the  intimacy  that 
must  ever  exist  between  the  high  and  the  lowly,  to  make 
evident  his  recognition  of  a  law  wherein  occupation  can 
make  no  distinctions.  It  is  a  self-evident  fact,  that  the 
large  concerns  of  the  world  are  with  the  people  who 
work.  Jesus  Christ  gave  to  labor  a  dignity  and  distinc- 
tion it  had  never  known  before.  He  is  the  high  exponent 
of  the  gospel  of  work.  Let  us  always  remember  that 
work  is  not  money-getting,  it  is  world-bettering ;  it  is  not 
drudgery,  it  is  discipline.  Without  it  we  rust.  As 
oxygen  to  the  lungs,  so  is  work  to  character.  Even  sal- 
vation itself  is  not  attained  through  some  weak  and  Ian- 


208  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

guid  and  insipid  kind  of  faith.  Faith  plus  works,  is  the 
dictum  of  the  Christ.  The  very  fact  that  this  age  is 
pecuharly  one  of  large  commercial  enterprise,  makes  it 
all  the  more  imperative  that  a  God  who  is  a  Son  of 
Industry  should  rule  and  control  it. 

We  believe  that  the  carpenter  of  Nazareth  is  speaking 
to  his  world  today  as  he  has  never  before  spoken  to  it. 
We  need  His  sacred  presence  now  in  all  the  teeming 
marts  of  trade.  We  demand  the  practice  of  His  precepts 
in  all  the  great  centers  of  industry.  There  is  a  crying 
need  for  the  Workman  of  Nazareth  in  those  places  where 
the  atmosphere  of  toil  is  heavy  with  the  enervating  mias- 
ma of  greed  and  selfishness.  Yes,  we  want,  in  a  world 
that  is  tired  and  worn  with  competitions  and  strifes,  the 
presence  of  this  Master  and  Lover  of  men.  If  into  the 
field  of  carnage  and  strife  we  pray  for  the  advent  of  the 
Prince  of  Peace,  then  into  that  far  wider  field  of  action, 
strewn  with  the  tired  forms  and  exhausted  figures  of  a 
vast  army  of  men  and  women,  who  are  struggling  for  the 
barest  needs  of  subsistence,  we  need  to  pray  for  the  re- 
turn of  that  simple  form  whose  lowly  occupation  re- 
lates Him  to  every  concern  of  life.  It  is  not  some  figure 
made  remote  by  our  Sunday  worship  of  it.  It  is  not 
some  Christ  of  theology  or  creed;  it  is  a  living,  acting, 
realized  Master  that  the  world  is  yearning  for.  A  Work- 
man, laboring  with  us  where  life  is  tense  and  its  dis- 
cipline hard,  we  supremely  need  now  and  must  have,  a 
Christ  of  the  common  people  and  hence  of  all  people. 


K    ^    t^ 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  209 


JESUS  CHRIST  THE  TEACHER 

A  GREAT  Chinese  minister,  Wu  Ting-Fang,  said,  "I 
believe  that  Christianity  is  the  highest  form  of 
religion  that  has  ever  been  founded  in  this  world."  And 
Napoleon,  in  exile  on  St.  Helena,  repeatedly  declared, 
that  no  teacher  had  arisen  in  the  world's  entire  history 
comparable  to  Jesus  Christ ;  said  he,  "He  is  great  with  a 
greatness  that  crushes  me." 

When  His  enemies  sent  officers  to  take  Him,  His 
speech  was  so  powerful  and  irresistible,  that  they  re- 
turned saying,  "Never  man  spake  like  this  man."  What 
amazing  authority  we  find  in  such  passages  as  these :  "I 
am  the  way,  the  truth  and  the  life" — "I  am  the  resur- 
rection and  the  life" — "I  am  the  light  of  the  world" — 
"All  power  is  given  unto  me  in  heaven  and  on  earth." 
It  is  little  wonder  that  Thomas  Carlyle  said  concerning 
his  messages:  "Higher  has  the  human  thought  not 
reached." 

One  of  the  amazing  things  about  his  teaching  is  its 
universality,  and  its  marvelous  application  to  all  the 
varying  conditions  of  human  life.  All  the  other  great 
religious  teachers  of  the  world  have  spoken  to  restricted 
areas.  They  have  been  what  we  call  ethnic  or  racial 
religious  teachers.  Not  so  Jesus.  He  speaks  to  the 
world  and  to  all  time.  There  is  as  much  freshness  about 
His  utterance  today  as  when  it  was  spoken.  He  is  dis- 
tinctly a  modernist,  and  the  singular  part  of  it  all  is,  that 
he  persists  as  such.  Speaking  from  such  lofty  heights. 
He  nevertheless  reaches  the  humblest  minds.  His  word 
is  as  clear  to  the  consciousness  of  the  peasant  as  it  is  to 
that  of  the  prince ;  it  is  as  luminous  to  the  opening  mind 
of  the  child  as  it  is  to  the  trained  mind  of  the  scholar. 


210  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 


One  of  the  things,  we  believe,  that  makes  Jesus  the 
Teacher  so  universally  loved  is  the  authority  with  which 
He  speaks.  The  divine  magnetism  of  His  voice  has 
literally  drawn  the  world  to  Him.  Other  great  teachers 
have  left  us  rich  and  wonderful  expressions  of  truth,  as 
they  apprehended  it,  but  none  of  them  draws  us  with 
such  compelling  power  as  does  the  Master  of  Nazareth. 
The  great  reason  for  His  unfailing  hold  upon  humanity, 
is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  He  gives  us  the  message 
we  most  sorely  need.  It  is  the  message  of  hope  and  in- 
spiration, the  message  of  assurance  and  encouragement, 
yes,  it  is  the  only  message  that,  with  any  degree  of 
authority  and  finality,  presents  to  us  the  mighty  claims 
of  immortality.  Confronted  with  the  mysteries  of  life 
and  death,  the  bewildered  world-pilgrim  cries  out :  "Lord, 
to  whom  shall  we  go;  Thou  hast  the  words  of  eternal 
life."  After  a  quarter  of  a  century  of  unfailing  search, 
the  great  scientist.  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  came  at  length  to 
bow  before  this  matchless  Teacher  and  to  acknowledge 
Him  as  his  Lord  and  Master.  In  the  eloquent  language 
of  another,  it  is  this  Divine  Teacher  who  has  literally 
"lifted  the  gates  of  empire  from  their  hinges  and  turned 
the  streams  of  centuries  from  their  courses." 

What  place  is  this  Teacher  to  have  in  our  new  and 
plastic  world  that  is  to  reconstruct  human  relationships 
and  to  rediscover  the  true  meaning  of  a  universal  broth- 
erhood ? 


It     »t     «C 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  211 


JESUS   CHRIST   THE  REFORMER 

A  DISTINGUISHED  Scotchman  once  said,  "The  so- 
cial art  of  living  is  learned,  not  in  the  school  of 
polemic,  but  in  that  of  the  crucified."  That  Jesus  was 
essentially  a  reformer  is  unquestioned ;  true,  He  is  gen- 
erally represented  as  the  gentlest  and  tenderest  of  men, 
but  apart  from  all  this,  the  heroic  in  His  nature  flashes 
forth  on  such  occasions  as  when  he  cleansed  the  Temple 
precincts,  or  spoke  of  a  petty  monarch  as  a  "fox"  whose 
authority  He  rejected.  So  heroic  is  Christ  in  Lord  Ten- 
nyson's estimate  of  Him  that  he  begins  his  great  poem, 
"In  Memoriam,"  with  the  line : 

"Strong  Son  of  God,  immortal  love." 
Jesus  came  to  break  down  unwholesome  traditions  and 
customs,  and  to  usher  in  a  new  day  of  right  dealing  be- 
tween man  and  man.  The  people  of  His  time  rejected 
Him,  despised  Him,  crucified  Him.  Why?  Because  He 
directed  His  invective  against  entrenched  systems  that 
witnessed  to  insincerity,  injustice  and  inequity. 

That  Jesus  is  the  world's  foremost  reformer,  the  most 
aggressive  enemy  of  social  and  industrial  ills,  as  well  as 
of  those  religious  inconsistencies  that  repeatedly  disclose 
themselves,  is  incontrovertible.  The  world's  lesser  re- 
formers have  drawn  their  inspiration  from  Him.  A 
champion  of  all  that  was  true  and  pure,  the  espouser  of 
any  cause  where  weakness  was  exploited,  an  unflinching 
advocate  of  the  down-trodden  and  helpless.  He  was  at 
all  times  and  under  all  conditions  the  unexampled  leader 
in  all  that  makes  for  human  betterment.  He  was  a 
world's  man  in  the  largest  sense,  intensely  human  and 
yet  altogether  divine.  If  He  came  to  bring  to  men  a  truer 
system  of  religious  devotion,  if  His  teaching  gave  to  the 
world  its  best  expression  of  the  life-expectant,  then  it  is 


212  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

equally  true  that  he  dealt  with  those  things  that  have  to 
do  with  time,  and  conditions  that  affect  the  life-existent. 

We  have  not  thought  of  Jesus  as  having  to  do  with 
civic  and  social  and  industrial  conditions,  and  yet  He  is 
incomparably  the  greatest  exponent  of  equity  and  justice. 
His  definition  of  the  two  obligations  of  life,  as  given  in 
the  summary  of  law,  sets  forth  His  policy:  First,  the 
right  relation  between  man  and  his  God,  second,  the  right 
relation  between  man  and  his  fellows. 

His  church  today  must  reproduce  His  method  and  must 
take  its  avowed  and  unchallenged  place  as  an  institution 
that  has  to  do  with  all  those  wholesome  reforms  that  are 
related  to  world-betterment.  We  believe  the  church  will 
move  with  greater  haste  in  the  direction  of  world-leader- 
ship when  it  has  learned  that  future  bliss  is  built  upon 
the  sure  foundations  of  present  happiness.  In  other 
words,  it  will  come  to  its  highest  attainment  when  it  has 
accomplished  here  a  society,  whose  controlling  maxim  is 
expressed  in  the  law  of  human  brotherhood.  When  we 
give  Christ  His  rightful  and  proper  place  as  the  world's 
greatest  reformer  we  will  bring  Him  within  the  range  of 
all  that  concerns  human  interests,  and  hasten  the  day 
when  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  shall  come  under  His 
divine  sway.  The  pierced  hand  of  this  Divine  Reformer 
must  again  be  felt  touching  the  world's  every  interest, 
and  His  large  conception  of  a  real,  universal  brotherhood 
must,  with  revivifying  power,  cover  the  earth,  even  as 
the  waters  cover  the  sea. 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  213 


JESUS  CHRIST  THE  FRIEND 

THE  story  of  the  world's  great  friendships  would  be 
the  story  of  its  great  inspirations.  The  flame  of 
genius  bums  more  brightly  where  it  is  fed  and  sustained 
by  love  and  encouragement.  No  one  of  us  can  live  his 
life  efficiently,  alone.  We  crave  companionship  and  w(» 
reach  our  greatest  heights  of  influen»e  and  power  when 
supported  by  those  we  call  our  friends. 

Jesus  Christ  was  not  unlike  other  men  in  his  yearning 
for  the  love  and  sympathy  of  friendship.  He  sought  out 
men,  most  of  them  homely,  simple  peasants,  and  from 
them  He  chose  His  intimates  and  those  who  were  to 
found  His  kingdom  on  earth.  One  of  the  youngest  of 
these  men  came  to  be  known  as  "John  the  Beloved,"  and 
his  writings  are  full  of  the  spirit  of  the  great  fellowship 
he  had  with  the  Master.  In  one  of  the  lonely  moments 
of  Christ's  life  He  turned  to  these  companions  and,  with 
an  evident  craving  for  their  closer  fellowship,  He  said: 
"Will  ye  also  go  away?"  It  would  not  be  wide  of  the 
mark  to  say,  that  it  was  upon  the  basis  of  a  strong  and 
enduring  friendship  that  He  laid  the  foundations  of  His 
system.  The  Christian  religion  is  essentially  a  society 
of  friends.  Unfortunately  it  has  not  always  been  char- 
acterized by  the  spirit  of  fraternity,  and  it  is  this  aspect 
of  it  that  does  violence  to  the  plans  of  its  divine  Founder. 
In  the  formation  of  this  society,  Jesus  violated  traditions 
and  destroyed  precedents.  He  found  His  friends  not 
among  the  socially  exclusive  or  among  the  schoolmen. 
He  walked  up  and  down  the  common  paths  of  life  draw- 
ing to  His  unrecognized  standard  and  comparatively 
revolutionary  teachings,  a  party  of  stalwart,  active  busi- 
ness-men.   It  was  because  of  these  very  intimacies  with 


214  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

men  of  humble  life  and  habit  that  they  called  Him  in 
derision,  "the  friend  of  publicans  and  sinners."  Glorious 
title  for  the  world's  Master-friend ! 

It  is  evident  that  Jesus  Christ  did  not  select  these  men 
that  He  might  draw  from  them  the  plan  of  His  system, 
but  He  did  select  and  choose  them,  that  He  might  satisfy 
the  cravings  of  a  heart  that  had  human  instincts  and 
longings ;  and,  again,  we  believe  He  chose  them  and  gave 
them  their  great  commission,  that  He  might  forever  give 
to  His  kingdom  on  earth  the  character  of  a  universal 
friendship.  Here  in  this  Master  we  find,  even  in  His 
search  for  companions,  that  which  compels  our  love  and 
calls  forth  our  deepest  devotion.  Christ's  life  was  as  full 
of  vicissitudes,  as  invested  with  all  that  the  caprice  and 
fickleness  of  man  could  lend  to  it,  as  any  we  know.  He 
lived  a  life  full  of  manifold  and  swift  changes.  He  rose 
step  by  step  to  the  great  accomplishment  to  which  He 
was  committed.  Yet,  through  it  all,  there  was  the  same 
devotion  and  affection  for  those  who  were  with  Him 
from  the  beginning.  Where  is  there  a  finer,  truer  love 
and  devotion  that  that  which  He  disclosed  to  his  faithless 
disciple,  Peter,  on  the  night  that  he  denied  Him  ?  Even 
Judas,  traitorous  betrayer  that  he  was,  received  no  other 
word  of  condemnation  than  this:  "Betrayest  thou  the 
Son  of  Man  with  a  kiss?"  It  was  true  of  Him  that, 
"having  loved  His  own.  He  loved  them  unto  the  end." 

We  like  to  think  of  this  great  society  of  friends,  with 
Jesus  at  its  center,  as  continuing  unbroken  through  all 
the  ages.  What  fellowships  and  intimacies  have  been 
born  out  of  it!  What  courage  and  heroism  it  has  in- 
spired! How  it  has,  century  by  century,  been  breaking 
down  walls  of  division  and  separation,  until  at  length 
we  are  coming  to  believe  that  only  thin,  invisible  lines 
divide  us.    What  a  passionate  yearning  there  is  today  all 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  215 

around  the  world  for  the  increase  of  this  Christian  fel- 
lowship, and  how  majestic  is  the  person  of  Jesus  of  Naz- 
areth, as  He  stands  forth,  the  incomparable  friend  of 
humanity.  It  makes  us  yearn  the  more  for  the  fulfilment 
of  that  high  vision  of  Robert  Burns  when, 

"Man  to  man  the  world  o'er. 
Shall  brothers  be,  for  a'  that." 

JESUS  CHRIST  THE  LIBERATOR 

"Ye  shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free." 

VICTOR  HUGO,  France's  incomparable  author,  once 
wrote : 

"The  first  tree  of  liberty  was  planted  eighteen  cen- 
turies ago  by  God  Himself  on  Golgotha.  The  first  tree 
of  liberty  was  that  cross  on  which  Jesus  Christ  was  of- 
fered, a  sacrifice  for  the  liberty,  equality  and  fraternity 
of  the  human  race." 

That  Jesus  Christ  should  be  accorded  a  place  among 
the  world's  emancipators  may,  on  first  consideration, 
seem  strange,  but  we  believe  that  in  no  aspect  of  His 
life,  other  than  that  of  the  world's  Saviour,  does  He 
come  so  close  to  the  heart  of  humanity  as  in  the  role  of 
the  world's  liberator.  One  of  the  great  purposes  of  His 
life,  as  He  repeatedly  asserted,  was  the  liberation  of  men 
from  the  thralldoms  that  had  restrained  and  shackled 
them  through  the  ages.  He  touched  with  His  divine 
hand  the  chain  that  bound  man  to  a  past  full  of  crude 
and  arbitrary  conceptions  of  God  and  of  life's  obliga- 
tions. We  believe  that  in  three  conspicuous  ways  Christ 
witnesses  to  the  high  place  of  leadership  as  the  liberator 
of  men. 


216  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

First,  He  is  the  liberator  of  men  from  the  thralldom  of 
human  philosophies.  Second,  He  is  the  liberator  of  men 
from  the  slavery  of  fear.  Third,  He  is  the  liberator  of 
men  from  the  slavery  of  sin.  That  the  world  at  the 
coming  of  Christ  was  rich  in  philosophy  and  that  it  had 
many  noble  and  inspiring  religious  systems,  no  one  would 
venture  for  an  instant  to  deny.  Notwithstanding  this, 
the  world  had  largely  lost  the  inspiration  of  a  true  and 
deep  religious  faith.  It  had  substituted  the  teachings  of 
men  for  the  commandments  of  God.  It  was  vainly  seek- 
ing to  satisfy  the  human  heart  with  traditions  and  cus- 
toms. A  shackled  mind,  a  restrained  aspiration,  and  a 
forsaken  hope — these  were  the  root  causes  of  the  world's 
bitterness.  The  world  had  lost  its  great  vision.  Jesus 
came  declaring  this  eternal  word,  "Ye  shall  know  the 
truth  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free."  He  brought 
the  only  thing  that  could  make  men  free,  truth — the  great, 
emancipating  power  in  human  life.  What  it  has  done 
for  the  betterment  of  human  institutions,  what  it  has 
done  for  the  amelioration  of  the  sufferings  of  men,  what 
it  has  done  for  the  elevation  of  womanhood  and  the  con- 
servation of  childhood,  yes,  what  it  has  done  for  the 
world's  genius  in  its  every  form  and  expression,  let  the 
certain  voice  of  history  declare. 

Again,  Christ  is  the  liberator  of  men  from  the  slavery 
of  fear.  The  influence  of  fear-thought  upon  life  is  so 
evident  as  to  need  no  demonstration.  Free  men  from 
the  burdening  anxiety  of  a  doubtful  present  and  an  un- 
known future,  give  to  every  day  an  objective,  and  to  time 
a  destiny  possible  of  attainment,  and  you  have  plucked 
the  thorn  from  life's  pathway,  and  for  foreboding  fear 
substituted  triumphant  hope.  A  life  full  of  fear  is  a  life 
full  of  weakness.  For  what  Carlyle  called  an  "absentee 
God,"  Jesus  gave  us  the  conception  of  an  ever-present 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  217 

Father.  He  took  away  the  fear  of  death,  and  of  "that 
bourne  from  whence  no  traveler  returns."  He  gave  us 
new  conceptions  and  larger  visions.  "He  brought  life 
and  immortality  to  light  through  the  Gospel." 

Finally,  Jesus  freed  man  from  the  slavery  of  sin.  "He 
knew  what  was  in  man."  He  penetrated  beneath  his 
rough  and  rude  exterior  and  to  man's  vision  disclosed  the 
latent  capacities  within.  He  lifted  a  fallen  creature  from 
her  degradation.  He  plucked  her  from  her  shame  and  on 
her  brow  He  placed  the  diadem  of  hope.  The  emancipat- 
ing power  of  Jesus  is  the  mightiest  miracle  of  the  New 
Testament,  and  it  is  a  miracle  that  is  as  operative  today, 
as  when  He  walked  here  on  earth.  We  are  the  witnesses 
daily  of  "twice  born  men."  Jesus,  the  Liberator,  is  ex- 
ercising His  emancipating  power  more  widely  and  effec- 
tively today  than  ever  before,  and  the  dark  shadows  of 
slavery  are  fleeing  before  His  face  and  giving  promise 
of  that  new  morning  when  the  world  shall  be  free. 

JESUS  CHRIST  THE  SAVIOUR 

"'  INHERE  is  none  other  name  under  heaven  given 
A  among  men  whereby  we  must  be  saved."  These 
words  express  the  conviction  of  a  little  group  of  men 
and  women  at  the  day-dawn  of  the  Christian  era.  They 
indicate  a  change  of  attitude  that,  in  the  face  of  the 
then  existing  conditions,  was  as  remarkable  as  it  was 
heroic.  To  profess  faith  in  thet  crucified  Nazarene 
meant  to  incur  the  sternest  disciplines,  and  in  many  cases 
to  forfeit  one's  life.  It  was  this  conviction,  however,  that 
literally  made  the  Christian  church  so  mighty  and  ir- 
resistible that  within  three  centuries  it  had  substituted 


218  EVERYDAY  RELIGION 

its  standards  for  those  of  the  Roman  legions,  and  had 
established  itself  in  the  great  centers  of  learning  and 
power. 

Jesus  of  Nazareth  has  many  names  and  distinctions, 
but  He  takes  His  supremest  place  in  human  thought  as 
the  world's  Saviour  and  Redeemer.  When  we  measure 
His  life  by  human  standards  there  are  some  aspects  of 
it  that  we  can  comprehend  and  understand,  but  when  we 
are  confronted  with  His  Saviourhood  He  rises  to  such 
sublime  heights  and  gives  evidence  of  such  supreme 
power  and  authority,  that,  with  Thomas  of  old,  we  can 
only  cry  out :    "My  Lord  and  my  God." 

In  the  loneliness  of  his  exile,  Napoleon  repeatedly 
turned  to  the  consideration  of  Jesus  Christ's  life  and 
ministry,  and  in  his  latest  hours  he  recognized,  not  only 
the  transcendent  beauty  of  His  life  and  teachings,  but  he 
betrayed  a  deep  reverence  for  His  sovereign  place  as  the 
world's  Saviour.  When  the  Frenchman,  Renan,  attempted 
to  write  the  life  of  Jesus,  which  is  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  expressions  of  that  life  the  world  contains,  un- 
believer though  he  was,  he  was  appalled  by  the  colos- 
sal assertion  of  Jesus  as  the  world's  Redeemer.  After 
years  of  deep  sorrow,  in  which  the  mystery  of  death  was 
uppermost  in  his  mind,  Tennyson  thus  addresses  Christ : 

"Thou  seemest  human  and  divine, 
The  highest,  holiest  manhood  Thou, 
Our  wills  are  ours,  we  know  not  why, 
Our  wills  are  ours  to  make  them  Thine." 

There  can  be  no  question  about  it  that  the  outstanding 
appeal  that  Jesus  makes  to  the  human  consciousness  is 
that  of  man's  Saviour  and  Redeemer.  He  declared  Him- 
self to  be  the  giver  of  "the  more  abundant  life."  He 
says,  with  strange  authority:    "Whosoever  believeth  on 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION  219 

me  hath  everlasting  life."  And  again,  "I  give  unto  them 
eternal  life;  and  they  shall  never  perish,  neither  shall 
any  man  pluck  them  out  of  my  hand."  Even  on  the  cross, 
with  hands  and  body  pierced.  He  asserts  His  sovereignty 
to  the  dying  thief:  "Today  shalt  thou  be  with  me  in 
Paradise." 

Confronted  with  these  mighty  assertions,  human  spec- 
ulation and  doubt  are  arrested  and  the  hand  of  faith  is 
outstretched  for  that  which  the  human  heart  craves  and 
which  Jesus  Christ  alone  satisfies.  If  the  poet's  word  is 
true, 

"'Tis  life  whereof  our  souls  are  scant. 
More  life  and  fuller  that  we  want," 

then  here  by  the  side  of  the  world's  Saviour  we  discover 
those  wells  of  power  and  inspiration  that  spring  up  unto 
everlasting  life.  It  is  our  deep  conviction  that  His  sav- 
ing power  is  not  a  consummation  effective  only  when  life 
is  spent.  Say  what  we  may,  there  is  something  which 
the  consciousness  of  His  Saviourhood  lends  to  life  here 
and  now  that  is  utterly  beyond  our  powers  to  analyze  or 
express.  We  are  a  world  of  men  and  women  with  the 
first  glow  of  the  eternal  life  upon  us ;  upon  whose  faces 
there  can  be  no  shadow  of  departing  day.  What  this  old 
world  is  sighing  for  today,  what  it  has  ever  sighed  for, 
is  the  conscious  presence  of  its  Saviour,  for  the  Saviour- 
hood  of  Jesus  has  to  do  with  life's  renewals.  With  even 
a  partial  conception  of  this  transmitted  power  of  Jesus, 
the  tasks  and  burdens  of  life  are  lightened  and  its  most 
awful  problems  solved. 


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